Page 38 of Not Quite a Lady
Perhaps he was simply so much more secure in himself than Adrian was that he did not have to take in order to be happy. Perhaps, this time at least, simply making her happy was enough. And shewashappy, happy with a bone-deep physical contentment that overwhelmed all her mental anxieties.
How many women fell in love and found out too late that they could not rely on the man, as she knew she could upon Jack?
Then, as she reached her chamber, reality rolled back out of the rosy mist she was inhabiting. What had just passed between her and Jack was all that there could be. He would go back to his mine, far away. She would continue with her social whirl until she found a titled husband whom she could tolerate, and thus fulfil her duty.
Lily sat down in front of her dressing table mirror and began to unhook her earrings and unfasten her necklace. The pearls slid over her skin in a sensual whisper as the double rope uncoiled.
Could she ever be touched by a man again without remembering Jack’s caress, the way his hard hands were so gentle on her body?
‘Miss Lily?’ She jumped as Janet emerged from the dressing room, pulling her wrapper tight and yawning. ‘You should havecalled me, Miss Lily.’
‘I thought I might be able to manage without disturbing you.’ Lily stood up and let the maid unhook the fastenings of her gown. A hair pin fell out.
‘I made a complete mull of taking down my hair,’ she confessed. ‘I was fiddling with it in the salon just now and it all came tumbling down. I have probably shed pins over half the house.’
‘Never mind,’ Janet said comfortably, lifting the heavy silk skirts over Lily’s head. She set the gown down and rapidly counted the pile of pins Lily had put on the dressing table. ‘Ten, and the one I’ve just picked up. That makes eleven. There ought to be twelve. I’ll warn the parlour maids. That’s a pretty set, we don’t want to lose one of them.’
Lily tossed aside her chemise and petticoats and dragged on her nightgown. She had never felt bashful about undressing with Janet in the room, now she was so conscious of her own body that she felt sure she must be one rosy blush from head to toe.
Should she still throb and tingle like that in places she had hardly been aware of before and would certainly never have considered it modest to think about if she had?
And yet Jack had caressed her there, brought her the most delicious pleasure with a touch, and she had felt not the slightest glimmering of shame.
‘Will there be anything else, Miss Lily?’ The maid shook out the undergarments and draped the gown over her arm.
‘No, thank you, Janet, just snuff out the candles as you go please.’
On the landing the clock struck a quarter hour. Quarter past two? How long had she and Jack stayed together in the salon, locked into that private dream world?
Lily snuggled down under the covers and thought about Jack. Was he too trying to sleep, or sitting up working on thosecomplex plans and calculations that littered his work table?
Or perhaps he had gone straight out again, to find an obliging Cyprian and take his pleasure with her. She stiffened at the thought of the betrayal, then forced herself to be fair.
Why should he not? He was a grown man, and unlike her, had no tie of affection to prevent him. For Jack, going to another woman would be no betrayal at all.
Lily was heavy-eyed at breakfast, toying with her toast and earning a sharp enquiry from her aunt about what she had been up to the night before to put dark circles under her eyes.
‘I danced too much, that is all. And then when I got home I was too restless to sleep so I sat up in the salon for a while.’
She flicked open the pages of theMorning Post, pretending an interest she did not feel in a report of a debate on trade in the House of Commons.
‘And Mr Lovell escorted you?’ Now how did Aunt know that?
‘I invited him to, but he had to join me there, in the end.’
‘You are blushing, Miss. Did he kiss you?’
‘Aunt. Lady Billington was with me.’
‘He’s not the man I think he is if he let that sharp-nosed creature stop him kissing a girl if he wanted to. Well?’
‘Yes,’ Lily admitted baldly.
‘Enjoy it?’
Lily stared at her relative, saw the twinkle in her eyes and smiled back. ‘Yes.’ What would Aunt say if she knew the truth about just how far those kisses had gone?
‘Stop blushing, child. You’d be unnatural if you didn’t like it, handsome young man like that. Just take care it doesn’t go too far – it is one thing having a warm flirtation, quite another finding yourself leg-shackled to an unsuitable man.’
