Candice Hern (33 page)

Marianne stood in the entry hall of her mother-in-law's town house, prepared to endure her weekly visit despite her prickly mood. She was still unsettled by a torrent of conflicting emotions. A housemaid stood waiting as Marianne untied the ribbons of her bonnet to hang on one of the wooden pegs lined up in a row above an umbrella stand.

Her hands froze. She stared at the slightly battered and worn tricorne hat that had always hung there. It had belonged to William Nesbitt, David's father. Lavinia insisted that it remain there, where William had last placed it before he died. It had hung on the same peg for fourteen years.

All at once, the sight of that hat sent a wave of emotion washing over Marianne, a wave so strong it had her mind whirling in drunken circles and caused her to sway unsteadily on her feet.

"Mrs. Nesbitt? Are you all right?"

Marianne made an effort to compose herself. "Yes, Patsy, I'm fine. Just ... a bit of the headache."

William's hat. She could not take her eyes from the hat. Its presence in the hall represented only one of a thousand little ways in which Lavinia Nesbitt had held on to her husband's memory. Held on to the past with a tenacious grip and wouldn't let go.

Marianne had been determined to be a different sort of widow from her mother-in-law, a modern open-minded widow who lived in the present. Who wore bright colors and had lovers.

But who could not let go of David.

Staring at William's hat was like looking into a mirror. She was no different from Lavinia, after all. She held on to David's name and her identity as David's widow just as Lavinia had held on to that old hat. Marianne had not been able to let go of the past.

But what was she holding on to? A memory of love? An illusion of perfect love that had lacked a physical intimacy she now knew to be so important? And what had made her think a memory of love was somehow superior to a living, breathing, here-and-now love? What a fool she'd been. She had always believed she
could
not love again, when the truth was she
would
not allow herself to love again.

Dear God. She was going to end up just as bitter and lonely as David's mother. She was going to sacrifice her life to the memory of a dead man.

She gave her head a shake. No. No, she would not. She would
not
end up like Lavinia Nesbitt. There was no need to. She had a man who loved her, a man she loved — really loved — who wanted to make a new life with her. And yet she had turned him down in order to become a human shrine, something she had sworn never to do.

One cannot hold onto the past forever, after all.

Marianne sent up a silent prayer of thanks to Viola Cazenove for helping her to see the light. She pulled the bonnet ribbons beneath her chin and tied them into a fresh bow.

"Are you leaving, ma'am? You're not staying for tea with the mistress?"

"No, Patsy, I'm not staying after all. Please give my regrets to my mother-in-law. Tell her ... tell her a light was held up to my eyes and I have become blinded by it."

"Ma'am?" The maid looked thoroughly confused.

Marianne laughed. "Just tell her I could not stay. I will see her next week."

And she bounded down the front steps feeling as though she'd been reborn.

* * *

It was several hours past midnight. She watched from the window as the hackney coach dropped Adam off. He was a bit unsteady on his feet when he alighted. He must be drunk. Was that how he'd been spending his time? Drinking and carousing and God only knew what else? Because of her?

Poor Adam. She hoped it was not too late to save him, to save them both. Now that she had freed herself from martyrdom and allowed herself to love Adam, the strength of that love took her breath away. He was everything to her that David had been, and more. She never felt as vital, as unguarded, as real, with anyone else she knew. Certainly not with any of the men who'd been on her dratted list. No matter what other men might come into her life, none would ever be able to give her what Adam could. None would be her best friend and her lover. Not even David had managed both. Only Adam gave her everything. She had been wrong all along, wrong about both men.

She waited a long while before moving from her position in the sitting room window, until all the lights in his windows had gone dark, and until she was confident that he would be asleep. Only then did she let herself out onto the balcony.

She hoped to God no one saw her, standing in a nightdress and wrapper, about to climb into a man's window in the middle of the night. But she did not let that worry her. She was determined on her course.

It was a difficult maneuver in a nightdress. It would have been difficult in any sort of dress. Climbing balconies was most definitely a man's job, unless a woman could be allowed to wear trousers. Perhaps she ought to have done that — found an old pair of David's trousers. It would have made the climb easier.

When she managed to get her legs over the spear-like finials of the railing, she almost fell onto the other side. She hoped the sound had not awakened him.

She turned the handle of the glass door and blessedly found it unlatched. She would have felt rather foolish if it had been locked and she had to climb back over the railing. Very slowly and very quietly, she opened the door.

Adam's house was a twin to her own. The balcony led to a sitting room, beyond which was a bedchamber. She approached the door to that room, which was slightly ajar. The drone of soft snoring told her Adam was sound asleep, just as she hoped.

She closed the door to the sitting room and drew the draperies across the windows in the bedchamber. Then she loosened the bed-curtains and pulled them closed on both sides of the bed. When she was convinced it was as dark as it could possibly be, she untied her wrapper, dropped her nightdress to the floor, and crawled into Adam's bed.

* * *

It was a wonderful dream. Marianne was lying practically on top of him, naked, and smelling of tuberoses. He reached up and touched soft, real flesh and came awake.

My God.

He wrapped his arms around her. "Marianne, my love."

She wriggled against him. "How do you know it's me? It's too dark to be certain. I might be anyone, some stranger who sneaks uninvited into your bed, hiding behind a cloak of darkness. Such things have been known to happen, you know."

"I do not care how dark you make it in here, my dear. I would know you anywhere." He rubbed a hand against her bare bottom. "I came to know you very well in the darkness. And what, may I ask, are you doing here?"

"I have come to ask a favor."

"A favor? At this hour? And may I assume that you came over the balcony?"

"I did. You should try it sometime in a nightdress, catching on those blasted finials every minute. It's not easy, I tell you."

"But you did it anyway. For the first time ever."

"It was important. I have that favor to ask."

"Ah, yes, your favor. I suppose you wish me to do you a favor of making love to you."

"Well, now that you mention it, I would like that very much." She caught his hand as it stroked her breast. "But first ... remember that list of potential lovers you helped me review?"

He groaned. "How could I forget it?"

"I have created a new list."

"Oh, God." He maneuvered himself out from under her and sat up on the edge of the bed. "Do not tell me you want me to help evaluate another set of candidates."

"Actually, that is precisely what I was hoping."

"Damn it, Marianne. You go too far." He stood up and walked naked to the sitting room door and opened it. "I think it best that you leave."

"Oh, don't be such an old poop, Adam. I need your help."

"And so you came to offer your body in exchange for more advice on how to secure another lover?"

"I think you should see the list."

"Damn it, I don't want to see the bloody list." He went to the bedroom window and tugged on the draperies to let in a bit more moonlight.

Marianne came up behind him and pressed her naked body against his. His own treacherous body reacted instantly. He tried to move away, but she kept an arm about his waist, and her hand slowly crept lower. With her other hand, she thrust a folded piece of parchment at him.

"Read the list, Adam. It shows only those gentlemen whom I would ever consider for a lover. Read it."

Damnation. She was going to be the death of him, seducing him with one hand and killing him with the other. He unfolded the parchment.

There was only one name on it. His.

He grabbed the hand that had crept down too far for his peace of mind, and swung her around. "What does this mean?"

"Isn't it obvious? You are the only one, Adam."

"Wonderful. But you still only want a lover, and I have said that I will not oblige you in this. It's all or nothing with me."

"But you see, Adam, here's my dilemma. If there is only one name worthy of my list, then what is the point of the list?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"If I can only ever accept one man in all the world as my lover, and never anyone else as long as I live, and if I happen to love that man to distraction anyway, then why not just marry the fellow and be done with it?"

His heart did a little flip-flop in his chest. Did she mean what he thought she meant? His arms came around her and his erection pressed against her stomach. "Do I understand that you are ready to entertain an offer of marriage?"

"Are you offering?"

"The offer stands, my love. There is nothing I want more." He released his hold on her and went down on one knee.

"Oh, Adam. It's a lovely gesture, but we’re both naked as the day we were born. I do not think this is quite necessary."

"It is absolutely necessary." He buried his face against her belly and ran his tongue in circles around her navel.

"Oh, dear. I think you're right."

He lifted his mouth just long enough to ask, "Will you do me the very great honor of marrying me, Mrs. Nesbitt?"

"Oh, my. I think I had better. I suspect you will not finish this otherwise."

"Quite so. Consider it blackmail." His tongue dipped lower.

"Oh, dear God. Consider it successful blackmail. Yes, I will marry you, Adam. I am sorry it took me a whole week to figure out that you were right. But please,
please,
will you take me to your bed so we can do this properly?"

"We are doing it properly."

His tongue parted the folds of her sex, and her knees buckled until she collapsed on the floor. They never made it to the bed. Instead, they both expressed their love and the joy in their new commitment in a bout of lovemaking that began tenderly and sweetly, grew more urgent, then frenzied, and finally was mutually explosive as they reached the peak of pleasure together on the Aubusson carpet.

Afterward, he scooped up her limp body, took her to his bed, and tucked her up snugly against him. Though she felt drowsy and languorous, she did not fall asleep. She lay in his arms, enjoying the gentle stroke of his hand against her hip.

"Marianne, I want you to know that I will try to be the very best husband I can be to you. I will love you and cherish you and keep you close all my life, even though I may not be the most perfect man in the world. I can never hope to be the man David Nesbitt was —"

She pressed a finger to his lips. "Stop. No more comparisons with David. Remember when I said one of the reasons I never wanted to marry again was because he had been the love of my life? Well, I have discovered something in the last week. Each day without you, I grew more miserable. Yes, I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted, to flirt with other men, to seek out another lover. But I found I wanted none of that. I didn't need that freedom after all. I needed you."

"My love." He put his arms around her and pulled her close.

"And it finally dawned on me," she said, "that I had everything all turned around in my mind. I had always thought David was the love of my life and you were my best friend. But that's not true. David was my best friend and
you
are the love of my life."

He buried his face in her hair and held her tight while he waited for the swell of emotion inside him to subside. Finally, he lifted his lips and whispered into her ear. "And you are both to me. And everything. Friend and lover. Soul mate. Partner. Love of my life. Everything."

He kissed her tenderly, with all the joy of the moment and promise of the future.

When they pulled apart at last and looked into each other's eyes, Adam's heart soared as it never had before. His life seemed to fall into place in that moment. All the years of reckless living and womanizing had simply been restless compensation for the one thing he could never have. His best friend's wife.

Thank you, David, for leaving her to me. Did you always know? Did you know she was all I needed to make my life complete?

"And so," he said, "I will honor my promise to David to look after you. For the rest of our lives. And we'll be happy, Marianne. We'll tear down those damned balconies — by God, we'll tear down the adjoining walls. We'll make a new, grander house, one out of two. Big enough to raise a family, if we're lucky. Maybe we'll have children and maybe we won't. But we'll always have each other, and that's more important. You will always be first with me, if we have a dozen children or none. And I will always love you. I promise to love you as much as David ever did."

She reached down and touched him. "If you please, Adam, could you love me more?"

And he did.

###

The following titles are available at most ebook retailers:

The Merry Widows:

IN THE THRILL OF THE NIGHT

JUST ONE OF THOSE FLINGS
(Beatrice's story)

LADY BE BAD
(Grace's story)

The Ladies' Fashionable Cabinet:

ONCE A DREAMER

ONCE A SCONDREL