A Secret Love (Cynster 5)

With barely a nod, Nellie shuffled out.

The instant the door closed, Alathea dropped back on her pillows, closed her eyes, and groaned. Feelingly.

Her thighs would never be the same again.

Chapter 12

"Allie?"

Blinking, Alathea refocused. Concern in her eyes, Alice peered at her across the breakfast table.

"Are you coming out into the garden with us?" Mary, beside Alice, looked equally worried.

Alathea summoned a quick smile. "Just wool-gathering. I'll get my hat-you go on ahead."

She rose with them and parted from them in the hall to go up to her room to fetch her gardening hat. Nevertheless, it was half an hour later before she reached the garden.

Mary and Alice hadn't waited for her but had started weeding the long border. Although they looked up when she neared and smiled welcomingly, it was plain they'd been exchanging confidences, whispered comments on their hopes, their dreams. Returning their smiles, Alathea surveyed their endeavors, then looked around. "I'll start on the central bed."

Leaving them to their dreams, she went off to contend with hers.

The central bed circled a small fountain, a water sprite caught in the act of springing free showering droplets back into a wide bowl. Spreading her raffia mat by the bed, presently filled with pansies, Alathea knelt, tugged on her cotton gloves, and set to.

About her, her family went happily about their morning routines. Jeremy and Charlie appeared from around the house, dragging dead limbs cut from overgrown bushes. In half an hour, Jeremy's tutor would arrive, and Charlie would change into his town rig and go out to spend the day with his Eton chums. Miss Helm and Augusta, clutching the ever-present Rose, came out and sat on a wrought iron seat; from what Alathea could hear, they were engaged in a simple botany lesson. After an hour or so, she, Mary, and Alice would retire to wash, change, and prepare for their morning's excursion-whatever Serena had organized. Inside, Serena would be sifting through the invitations, sending notes, plotting their best course through the shoals of the Season. Alathea was content to leave the strategies to her; it was bad enough that she had to weed.

The fiction they'd concocted to hide the fact that they could not afford a second gardener, one to take care of the beds and borders at the Park and the garden of the London house, was that Alathea enjoyed planting and weeding and Serena felt it right that her daughters, too, became knowledgeable in the art of creating a stunning border. And, of course, all gentlemen should have some understanding of landscaping. Luckily, landscaping, borders, and beds were all the rage, although ladies and gentlemen generally only oversaw such projects, a fine distinction the earl, Serena, and Alathea had omitted to mention.

As she reached for a blade of grass cheekily poking up between clumps of pansies, Alathea inwardly sighed. She would much rather never see a weed again, but… With a yank, she uprooted the interloper and dropped it on the grass beside her. Parting the pansy leaves, she searched for more.

Of course, as soon as her hands were mindlessly busy, her thoughts drifted…

She could never meet with him privately again. Not ever. The countess was going to have to retreat; she couldn't yet disappear. Despite the fact she'd enjoyed last night hugely, she couldn't possibly risk such a meeting again.

In a carriage. She still couldn't quite believe it. If she hadn't been there… Was there anywhere he couldn't… wouldn't…

Minutes later, she shook her head. Struggling to hide a smile, she looked down.

Thankfully, no one knew. She'd gathered enough strength to instruct Jacobs to drive around Grosvenor Square while she'd scrambled into her chemise, stockings, shoes, and gown. Her hair she'd had to leave down. Goodness knows what Jacobs had made of the pins he would by now have discovered on the carriage floor. Concealed beneath her veil and cloak, she'd been safe from Crisp's eyes. Other than Jacobs, who'd been busy with his team, only Crisp had been awake when she'd returned. She'd given strict instructions that not even Nellie was to wait up for her on pain of her considerable displeasure. She'd done the same the night she'd gone to the Burlington; she could only thank her stars she had.

So no one knew of her fall from grace. Her lips kicked upward. It had, to her, felt more like an elevation. A revelation certainly, an induction into a realm of earthly bliss. She was not of a mind to wallow in senseless regrets-she'd lived, all but died, and exulted last night, and for that she could only be glad.

Even now, she wasn't free of the lingering spell. She hadn't imagined that the activities theoretically restricted to the marriage bed could result in such an interaction-a voyage into another dimension of feeling where the world fell away and emotion reigned. She'd had her first inkling of that joyous state during their night at the Burlington. Last night, they'd journeyed much further, through landscapes of unutterable delight.

And it had been they, not just she. He'd been there, with her-had it been her inexperience, or had he been as stunned by the glory as she? Whatever, they'd shared it all-the journey, the discovery, the overwhelming satiation, followed by their plunge into that well of deep peace.

It had been the most glorious night of her life.

Her lips quirked. She had to wonder what he'd thought he'd been about, holding her naked on his knees. She assumed it had been part of some plan-he was always planning. She strongly suspected he'd intended her to feel in his power. She had to smile. He couldn't know that she'd sat there, naked before him, and gloried in the power she'd wielded over him.

For power there'd been-those dark, illicit moments had been charged with it-but for every tithe of power he'd held over her, she'd held the same measure over him.

She'd startled him with her statement that she wanted him. Other ladies would not have been so bold. But he hadn't been at all reluctant-oh, no. If she hadn't taken him, he'd have taken her.

Warm memories washed over her, through her-kneeling in the sunlight, she drifted away.

A conspiratorial giggle from Alice drew her back; she blinked-and saw the pansy plant she was holding, roots dangling, in one hand.

With a muttered curse, Alathea plunged it back into the hole from which she'd pulled it and quickly tamped it down. Then she checked her pile of "weeds." Two more pansies were rapidly returned to the soil. She could only hope that if they died, they wouldn't leave a hole in her border.