Mary Balogh - A Summer to Remember

He moved his head to set his forehead against her shoulder.

“Stop me,” he said, his voice both rough and husky. “For God’s sake, Lauren, stop me.”

“No.” She lifted his head with both hands and looked into his face, her fingers gently stroking through his hair. “This is what I choose, Kit. What I freely choose. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.” She could not bear it now if he did. “This is not just for you. It is for me too.” She feathered light kisses over his face as she spoke, kissing his cheeks, his eyes, his mouth.

He was holding her again then, just as close, and kissing her just as deeply as before except that the frenzied urgency had gone, to be replaced by hot passion mingled with what felt very like tenderness. As if she had become for him not just a woman, but Lauren too. Her naked breasts pressed against his coat.

She was giver and gift. He was gift and giver.

It was upon one of the velvet benches that he laid her down after another minute or two. It was quite wide enough to make a narrow bed, she realized. She reached up her arms for him, but he was raising her gown to her waist, removing her silk slippers, her stockings and her undergarments, unbuttoning the front flap of his breeches. His eyes, heavy-lidded with desire, roamed over her. His hair was disheveled, his cheeks flushed. He looked beautiful beyond belief.

Lauren Edgeworth, that disciplined lady, stood apart again for a moment and informed her other self that she was simply not thinking, that she would forever regret what would happen unless she put a stop to it now. But the point was that she was thinking. This was not mindless passion. It was not even passion, in fact. It was something more primal, more deeply emotional than that. It was something she knew with absolute certainty she would never regret.

He knelt beside the bench, kissing her face with light, feathering kisses. With his hands he fondled her, doing exquisite things with her breasts, holding them, stroking them, rolling the hardened, tender nipples between thumbs and forefingers. And then with one hand he fondled her there, his fingers nimbly probing her naked flesh, parting folds, stroking, lightly scratching, pulsing, finding the most intimate part of her and sliding inward.

She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly.

She knew what happened between a man and a woman. Aunt Clara had explained it to her before her planned wedding to Neville. She had sometimes tried to imagine it, though more often she had tried not to. It must be embarrassing, utterly distasteful, she had always thought. She had imagined it as a purely carnal thing, totally stripped of emotion or even of any tactile sensation apart from the humiliating penetration of her body that must occur.

She had never suspected that there would be this ache, this yearning, this eagerness to be penetrated, to be joined. This need—emotional as well as physical—to give and to be gifted. Was this passion? If so, it was not mindless at all.

“Lauren.” His mouth was warm over hers. “It is not too late to stop me.”

“Don’t stop.” She did not open her eyes. “Kit . . .”

He had removed his coat and waistcoat. His shirt felt warm and silky against her naked breasts. So did his breeches against her inner thighs as he pushed between them and spread them wide. His weight bore her down into the velvet cushions of the bench. It made her feel more defenseless, on the verge of alarm. Open and vulnerable. And pulsing with a heightened need that was almost unbearable.

She felt him then, pressed against the place where his finger had been just moments before. But much thicker, harder . . . She breathed in slowly as he came inside her, slowly, stretching her, filling her with a terrifying sort of exultation. There was no going back now, no stopping him. It was too late, and she was glad it was too late. She gripped his shoulders and concentrated upon not showing either fear or pain. There was pain. There was no more room. He was going to hurt her—but she had been told it would hurt. Then something tore inside her, something that for a moment threatened unbearable pain and then was gone, just as the barrier of her virginity was gone. He pushed deep.

“Lauren,” he murmured against her ear. “Sweet. So very sweet. Have I hurt you?”

“No.” Her voice sounded shockingly normal.

She should lie still and relaxed, Aunt Clara had advised, until her husband had finished. Her husband.

Finished? Had he finished now?

He drew out of her and she felt a pang of regret. This was all? Once in a lifetime and it was over already, to be relived only in dreams for the rest of her life? Over so soon? But at the moment she expected him to withdraw altogether he pushed back inward. There was soreness. There was also an exquisite silken feeling and the knowledge that there were to be a few moments longer. She wanted to beg him to do it again, but even at such a moment she knew a lady’s reluctance to appear gauche or to make foolish demands.

He did it again. And again. She lay still, holding his shoulders as if they were the only anchor of her existence, quietly absorbing all the forbidden delights of her shocking fall from virtue.

She was glad. What reward had virtue ever brought her? Virtue was its own reward, she had always believed. But it was not. Virtue was no reward at all.

Did he know how good it made her feel, this repeated thrust and withdrawal, which had become smooth and rhythmic? Did he know? Was that why he did it? To delight her? But she could hear his labored breathing, and she could feel his increased body heat, and she knew that of course he did it because it delighted him. She delighted him.

She delighted him. She, Lauren Edgeworth. She smiled and focused all her thoughts, all her feelings, downward. She would drink this cup of pleasure to the very dregs. The memory would last her a lifetime.

His hands slid beneath her before she was more than halfway down the cup, holding her buttocks firm, tilting her upward, and his thrusts became harder, faster, deeper. A sharp ache of pure pleasure came swirling upward through her belly to focus in her breasts, but before it could be repeated, far too soon, it seemed—how greedy she was!—he strained deep into her and she felt a warm liquid gush.

Ah. He was finished.

And she was not.

Did women ever finish? Did they ever begin? Was there only the delight and the reaching for something beyond one’s grasp? But the delight was enough. She was not sorry. She would never be sorry. She would not allow her conscience to scold her later tonight, tomorrow, for the rest of her life. She was glad this had happened. It had been one of the loveliest experiences of her life. No—it was the loveliest.

She thought he must have fallen asleep for a few minutes. She ran her fingers through his hair and turned her head to gaze into the fire, which was sending crackling sparks up the chimney as the logs burned down. She listened to the cozy sound of rain against the window.

“Mmm,” he said after a while, and he lifted his head to look down at her. “I do not have to say I am sorry, do I, Lauren? I did not force—”

She set the fingers of one hand over his mouth. “You know you did not,” she said. “I will not be on your conscience, Kit.”

He smiled—a sleepy, warm smile. “I will say thank you instead, then,” he said. “Thank you, Lauren, for such a precious gift. Was it very painful? I have heard it is so the first time.”

“It was not very,” she assured him.

He lifted himself off her then and stood up to adjust his clothing, his back to her. He held his handkerchief out to her without turning.

“Use this,” he said.

She had been wondering how she would manage. There was blood, she discovered. But even now, though her hand shook as she cleansed herself, she could not bring herself to a full realization of the enormity of what she had done. That came only after she had put herself to rights and was sitting on the edge of the bench, all neat and respectable again, the soiled handkerchief balled in one hand.

“Well,” Kit said, turning and smiling cheerfully at her, “we are going to have to decide upon a wedding date, aren’t we?”

The rain stopped during the night, though it was the middle of the morning before the sun shone and dried the grass and promised summer heat for the afternoon.

Kit suggested and organized a game of cricket out on the long front lawn. It was intended originally just for the children, but all the young people and even some of the older gentlemen greeted the idea with such enthusiasm that the scope of the game was quickly extended. And almost everyone who was not playing—all except the dowager, Lady Irene, and Baron Galton, in fact, who retired for an afternoon nap—agreed to play the essential role of spectator.

The men busied themselves setting up the pitch while Kit divided the prospective players into teams of roughly equal ability and experience. Lauren, Gwendoline, and Daphne meanwhile spread blankets on the lawn for the spectators, a safe distance from the wickets. Several of the younger children dashed about, getting under everyone’s feet, tolerated only because the sun was shining and soon their energies would be channeled into the game. In all the noise and bustle no one noticed three riders approach up the driveway and onto the terrace until Daphne Willard hailed them.

Lord Rannulf Bedwyn had already dismounted and was lifting Lady Freyja to the ground. Lord Alleyne was surveying the chaos before him.

“Ah,” he said. “A cricket match, I perceive, and not yet begun. Good afternoon, ma’am.” He addressed himself to the countess, sweeping off his hat and inclining his head as he did so. “Might one be permitted to join the fun, even though one came merely to pay one’s respects?”

The countess introduced them to Gwendoline, whom they had not yet met. Lord Rannulf bowed over her hand and retained it while he exchanged civilities with her.

“You are quite sure you will not play?” Kit asked, coming toward Lauren and grinning down at her.

It seemed to her suddenly that last night could not possibly have happened—none of it. He looked so normal, so much his usual self. And she was very much her usual self.

“Quite sure,” she said firmly. “I would not have the smallest idea what to do.”

“You can catch a ball, surely?” he coaxed. “You can run. I can teach you how to wield the bat.”

“Kit,” she said, “if this is another of your ideas for forcing me to enjoy myself, you are going to forget it right now. I am going to enjoy myself immensely sitting here. Besides, not one of the other ladies over the age of eighteen is out there to make a spectacle of herself.”

But even as she spoke Lady Freyja Bedwyn strode out onto the lawn with Lord Alleyne and announced her intention of playing on whichever side was not Kit’s. Lord Alleyne joined Kit’s team.

“There is no persuading you?” Kit laughed and turned his attention back to the cricket match, which was about to begin.

Lauren adjusted her wide-brimmed straw hat to shade her complexion more effectively from the sun and permitted herself a sigh of relief. She had feared for one moment that he was going to insist. She needed to think. No, she did not! Not now. She felt color flood her cheeks at the memory of last night. She must not think about any of it until she was alone again—or of the fact that she had said no. God help her, she had said no.

The cricket match was lively and merry. Kit, whose side was fielding first, did a great deal of yelling and laughing. He was bowling, and he was annoying some of the more serious members of his team by deliberately allowing the smaller, weaker players to score against him while reserving his more lethal skills for the experienced players. When young David Clifford, standing at the wickets closest to him, his bat almost as big as himself, had to run the length of the pitch in order not to be thrown out by Sebastian Willard, a member of Eton’s first eleven last term, Kit picked the child up bodily and ran with him, laughing gaily all the way. They raced the ball by perhaps half a second.

“Dear me. Thus far Kit is the star of both teams,” Lord Rannulf remarked. “He must be inspired, like the knights of old, by the admiring eye of his lady. Does he wear your favor in his bosom by any chance, Miss Edgeworth? But we are about to see what he can accomplish against Freyja.”