a face. The street was empty, save for a solitary street sweeper, broom balanced across his shoulder like a musket as he made his way to work. On the railings that lined the low wall beside her, a robin sat perched, watching her, his little red breast vivid, his brown feathers fluffed like a ball. The door shut quietly behind her as she climbed into Linwood’s waiting carriage and it rumbled off. She glanced up at the window of Linwood’s bedchamber, to where he lay naked and sleeping within the great four-poster bed. And she smiled and thought that in all of the years of her life she had never felt so happy. Linwood did not have the pistol. And that had to mean he was innocent.
* * *
The house was awake and waiting for her when she reached home. She could see the way the servants looked at her, the slight embarrassed knowledge, the way they could not quite meet her eye. They all knew she had not come home last night. They all knew it was Linwood she was seeing. But she did not care, whatever the gossip. Nothing could dim the glow that she felt.
Her body was sore, but it was a good soreness, a feeling of satisfaction, of completeness. She washed herself in warm water, washed the dried blood smears from between her legs. And she remembered his tenderness, his gentleness, the way he touched her, the whispered words in the dark dawn of a new day. Then she dressed herself carefully, choosing a pale yellow dress that reflected her new lightness of spirit. Only then did she let her maid in to coil and pin her hair up in a demure style. She looked at herself in the mirror and despite the lack of sleep there was no need for rouge on lips or cheeks. She smiled, a smile of utter joy, and the woman in the mirror looked radiant. She was in love with Linwood and nothing else in the world seemed to matter. She was in love and she did not think of her predicament or of his, only that she loved him, and that her body still throbbed from it.
The clock on the mantel chimed quarter to the hour. Her maid helped her into her matching pelisse. She wrapped a scarf of gold crochet around her neck, fitted her beige kid gloves and left for the meeting with Robert.
* * *
Linwood woke to the sound of carriage and cart wheels on the road outside. He felt relaxed, at ease with himself, happy. It was the first morning in years that he did not wake with the dread and worry of the day that lay ahead. And there was only one reason—Venetia.
The bed beside him was empty, the sheets cool. He threw back the covers and padded through to the drawing room. His clothes from which Venetia had undressed him the night before had been folded into a neat pile upon his desk. Of Venetia’s there was no sign. He smiled at her discretion as he headed back into the bedchamber and thought of how this strange game between them had played out. For all its risk, it had brought him Venetia. And he had fallen in love with her.
She was incomparable. Unique. A woman of passion and strength and yet with an underlying vulnerability. She was his, in truth now. And he was hers. He thought of their lovemaking, of its passion and gentleness, of the feel of her in his arms, of their bodies entwined afterwards. They had slept and loved, and slept and loved again, all through the night. And not once had he thought about Rotherham, or any of the rest of it. He had thought about Venetia. Only Venetia...and how much she meant to him. He smiled again as he glanced at the bed on which they had made love and in the light dimmed by the curtains saw the marks that marred the pale bed sheets.
He frowned, wondering what had caused them. Unmindful of his nakedness, he moved to the window and, wrenching open the curtains to let in the flood of daylight, turned to examine the bed more closely. And what he saw made his heart skip a beat. It was not possible, yet the evidence was before his very eyes. And then he remembered how very tight she had been, the way she had cried out and gripped so tightly to him as he had