Remember Love (Ravenswood #1)(32)
“I love you,” he said softly, and Gwyneth thought her heart would surely burst, so filled it was with joy.
“I love you too,” she said. “I have always loved you.”
One of his arms wrapped about her waist to draw her closer while the other came about her shoulders. She slid one hand down over his chest and put her arm about his waist. She wrapped the other about his neck. And he was all solid, warm male. He was Devlin. She could feel his hard-muscled thighs pressed to her own as he kissed her again, his lips slightly parted this time. The heat and the shock of it made her knees feel weak. There was a curious, dull throbbing between her thighs and up inside her. His hand was moving down from her waist to press her firmly against him, and she was not so ignorant that she did not know what she felt there. Her lips parted against the pressure of his and she kissed him back with all the hot ardor of her youth and her love for him.
At last, she thought. At last.
“Gwyneth,” he murmured against her lips after what might have been moments or minutes or hours—she was not keeping count. “What a perfect day this has turned out to be. My love.” He spoke the words with some wonder, as though he were testing them, and she laughed softly at the simplicity and extravagance of them. “You are so beautiful.”
She almost replied by telling him that so was he, but it would be too reminiscent of what she had said as a joke to Nicholas earlier. It would not be a joke if she told Devlin he was beautiful, but he might think it was. He might be hurt. Oh, she did not know him well at all yet, she realized. There was so much to learn about him, so much to know. But the thought exhilarated her, for there would be time for the learning and knowing. A lifetime. She felt no doubt that they would have that together. This was not dalliance, the fleeting passion of a moment.
His forehead touched hers as he fondled her breasts with light fingertips through the lace and silk of her gown. She ran her fingers through his hair—short, thick, smooth, warm.
“May I call on your father tomorrow?” he asked her. “Or am I being ridiculously hasty? There has been one day of courtship. One perfect day. Ought I to wait longer? But it is not as though I have not known you and loved you forever—as you say you have loved me. May I call?”
“Yes,” she said, and laughed softly. “Oh, yes, Devlin. It has been far longer than one day. It has been forever.”
“I will prepare a pretty speech to make you on bended knee after he has given his consent,” he said. “If he gives his consent. Will he?” He laughed then too, and she loved the happy sound of it.
Ah, she would make him laugh all the time from this day forward. She would make him happy. Because she herself would be happy.
He kissed her lingeringly again before sighing. “We must be going back soon,” he said. “I am obliged to show myself in the ballroom and dance with other partners.”
“And I have promised the next set to Mr. Greenfield,” she said. “Your uncle.”
Devlin kissed her once more, his hands cupping her shoulders. But he lifted his head sharply after a few moments and held it in a listening attitude. “Dash it,” he muttered. “There are some people coming. Up to the pavilion, I suppose.”
Gwyneth could hear them too—low female laughter and the soft murmur of a man’s voice. It was hardly surprising. The ball was in its final hour and the night was cool and lovely. The temple pavilion was picturesque and private and not very far from the ballroom. It was the perfect setting for a little moonlit romance.
“We had better creep away like thieves in the night,” Devlin whispered in her ear, laughter in his voice. “So that they will not embarrass us and we will not embarrass them. We will go down through the trees to the bottom of the hill and around the side and back up to the house. They will probably be too busy to notice us anyway.”
He moved back from her and took her hand in his. But before they could begin the descent the woman spoke from the pavilion above them. She did not speak loudly enough for her words to be distinguished, but there was something familiar about her voice.
If only, Gwyneth thought much, much later—too late, far too late. If only she had said nothing at that moment, the world might have continued on its course and . . . Ah, but she did say something, albeit very softly. And so the world changed course and everything changed with it.
Everything.
“That is Mrs. Shaw,” she murmured.
The new resident of Boscombe. The widow who had lost her husband in the Indian wars, poor lady, and come to live here, though she knew no one and no one knew her. That fact had puzzled everyone, for she was young and beautiful and always dressed fashionably, her year of mourning presumably at an end, and one would have expected her to have chosen a more sizable town or a spa such as Bath. Did she have no family to go to? Did her late husband have none? So far she had not seemed particularly interested in making friends here, though admittedly she had not been here longer than a few weeks. She had been at the fete today, however, and had appeared to be enjoying herself whenever Gwyneth set eyes upon her. She had joined in the maypole dancing lesson. And she had come back for the ball tonight.
Devlin had gone very still, his hand tight about hers.
The man laughed. And there was no mistaking that laugh. There was only one like it, and it was very well known. He took laughter and good cheer with him wherever he went. The Earl of Stratton. Devlin’s father.