Love's Reward Page 22
This was not cowardice or lack of honor. It was the opposite. It was an overwhelmingly generous belief.
In return for her compulsive infidelity, Fitzroy had offered Juanita only loyalty and compassion.
So there had been something of love between Fitzroy and Juanita, after all. It had been doomed from the start, because of the war, because of Napoleon’s ambition and Britain’s reaction to it, because the Spanish were divided in their loyalties, because at Badajoz the British officers had lost control of their men.
She was sixteen.
But Fitzroy understood love.
“Do you still love her?” Joanna asked quietly.
Fitzroy looked surprised. “She is dead. I loved her then, but she is only one part of my life, and in the past. If Carmen had not thought up such a devious plot to take her family’s revenge on me and on England, I could have let Juanita sleep on, at peace in that part of my memory. I wish I could have helped her, but I failed. I don’t blame myself any longer for that. It wasn’t because of Juanita that I lived in such a rage when I first met you. It was because of my innocent men, being slaughtered when I was powerless to stop it.”
“You should have told me,” Joanna said.
“Ours was supposed to be a marriage of convenience. It wasn’t meant to matter.”
She glanced down. “No, I suppose not.”
Now only one question remained. Joanna looked up, straight into his eyes, and asked it.
“So what do you want now?”
His voice was soft. “Shall I be honest? Honesty is an infinitely worse risk than art, isn’t it? But here’s the truth, upon my honor. What I want now is for you to take off that dress and get into this bed with me.”
She blushed scarlet. “But you’re hurt.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that,” he said dryly. “But I still have one good side. I just want to hold you.”
“Just hold me?”
“And maybe kiss you a little.”
“Fitzroy! Please, the doctor feared for your life.”
“So you do care, Joanna?”
Joanna knew that she would be justified in refusing him. Yet she remembered Helena’s words with a new understanding: Not striking back when you’ve been wounded takes every ounce of courage and conviction you have.
This was not the end of a story. It was the beginning, if she was prepared to find compassion and generosity in herself as well as desire. Now it was her turn to be honest, to risk it.
“I care with all my heart, Fitzroy. But I thought perhaps that you only made love to me that night from charity.”
“Charity!” He laughed aloud. It scattered her doubts more surely than any protestations.
“I thought you felt sorry for me.”
“Then how very little you know about men, sweetheart! I shall be very happy to teach you more about a man’s desire. But, alas, you’ll have to undo all those buttons by yourself. I don’t believe I can use both hands yet.”
“Very well,” she said, releasing his hand and standing. “But you must promise not to move too fast and tear your stitches.”
“I promise,” Fitzroy said.
Joanna slowly undid the buttons on her dress. She let it slip to the floor, leaving her in nothing but her shift and stockings.
“Take down your hair.” Fitzroy gazed at her steadily, his eyes as wide as the night sky. “I love your hair. I longed to touch it ever since I first saw you at the Swan.”
She reached up and pulled out the pins, running her fingers through the strands and shaking the mass down over her shoulders.
His dark, heated longing as he watched her lit a fire in her heart.
“I wish I could take off your stockings. I’d like to peel them down, very slowly, and kiss the back of your knee and your ankle and your instep.”
Joanna put one foot on the bed and rolled off her stocking. Heat spread from her heart and set flames running through her body.
“You may say what you like,” she said. “When you can’t act on it.”
His voice was gentle, teasing. “Are you so sure that I can’t act on it? Now the shift, if you please.”
It took all of her trust and courage. He hadn’t earned it, but she would take a risk and find out whether there really was a future for them, after all.
Joanna pulled her shift over her head, blushing furiously. She felt helpless and hot and filled with desire.
Fitzroy’s gaze ran over her body. She glanced down, burning. Her hair drifted across her breasts, skeins of black silk against her white skin. His breath caught. There was no sarcasm or mockery there now. He was as open and vulnerable as she was.
As she saw it, the last shreds of her hesitation melted away to be replaced by a clear, blazing certainty.
This man was her destiny and the love of her life.
I give you my soul to dance upon, if you like. He had meant it.
And freely, freely, she was prepared to give hers to him in return. Feeling as proud and unfettered as a pagan princess, she smiled at him.
Fitzroy smiled back. “Joanna, I love you with all my heart. You are my now and my future. The past no longer matters. You are my wife, sweetheart. Unless you demand your freedom. In which case, though it break my heart, I should see that you have it.”
Lifting the sheet she slid into the bed next to him, careful to avoid the bandages, letting him slip one arm about her to pull her into his strong embrace.
“How can you possibly talk such fustian, Fitzroy?”
Joanna moved against him, feeling the delectable touch of his fingers, and his lips in her hair. Her blood blazed in a clear, unequivocal response.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I don’t ever want to be free of you. I want to paint your portrait.”
He smiled again as he touched her mouth with his.
“And I yours,” he said.
Author’s Note
The nursery rhyme about Cock Robin dates from at least the fourteenth century and is probably much older. It was well known during the Regency, and had been used in 1742 as a satire during the downfall of Robert Walpole’s ministry. Some scholars believe it may originally have been a folk retelling of the myth of the treacherous killing of Balder, Norse god of sunlight, beautiful, wise, and favored by all the gods.
Yet “Cock Robin” in Regency slang simply meant a kind, easy-going fellow.
I am told by a generous member of Britain’s Royal Racing Pigeon Association that the sport of training carrier pigeons was far more developed in Belgium than in Britain at the beginning of the nineteenth century. However, a few Englishmen kept and flew pigeons as a private hobby, and it was close to this time that pigeons were first used by professional news agencies. So perhaps Fitzroy saw the potential for these courageous birds to exchange messages with Belgium. (We may assume he visited there either before or after Waterloo.)
Modern pigeons fly at approximately forty-five miles per hour with no wind resistance, and can fly distances of five hundred miles in twelve hours without stopping. So it would have been no problem for Fitzroy’s birds to cross the Channel to deliver the message that saved Wellington from my imaginary plot. In the spring of 1816 the Iron Duke’s headquarters were indeed at Cambrai, which is close to the Belgian border, as Europe continued to adjust to Napoleon’s final defeat.
Love’s Reward, which won the prestigious RITA award for Best Regency, is the sixth and last title in my Regency Reward series, which began with Scandal’s Reward, winner of the Award of Excellence. The Acton family first appeared in my second Regency, Virtue’s Reward. Each of the older siblings earned their own story, as well, as you may discover in Rogue’s Reward and Folly’s Reward.
I hope you enjoy all their adventures.
My eight long historical romances (every one a Romantic Times “Top Pick”) will be e-published next, under my alternate author name, Julia Ross.
Please visit me at www.jeanrossewing.com or www.juliaross.net to find out more.
Thank you,
readers!
Copyright © 1997 by Jean R. Ewing
Originally published by Zebra Books (ISBN 978-0821758120), October, 1997
Electronically published in 2016 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.