The Earl And The Nightingale (Historical Regency Romance) Read online

  When they arrived at the apartments in St. Martin-in-the-fields, Jonathan and Garance alit, and made their way quietly into the building. Nathan drove away silently, leaving the two of them alone.

  Inside the apartment, Camille was clearly asleep, and the two of them closed the door, with a sense that they were finally leaving the painful world behind. “This is what I have been waiting for, for many days,” said Garance.

  “As have I,” said Jonathan. He leaned down and kissed her tender lips, feeling the pain recede and the terror vanish. She fairly melted into his arms, moving slowly but deliberately into the bedroom.

  “Are you certain?” asked Jonathan, feeling the tension and the anticipation rise in his body.

  “I have never been more certain of anything in my life.” Garance was feeling none of the trepidation that Jonathan was experiencing. “I do not want to live another day without knowledge of what it is like to love you. Entirely.”

  “But you are not yourself, Garance!” he protested. The truth was, he was more frightened of what was about to transpire than of the encounter with Bagshot. It was an unknown country to him, and one he had heard about only as from one who has returned from the land of the dead. The world of physical love, of true and honest communion with another person. The joy of the touch of another’s skin on the skin was alien to Jonathan, and yet it consumed him day after day.

  But like a prisoner marking the days of his incarceration on the wall of his cell, he knew the days of anticipation were ending. The idea of something better coming for him was both thrilling and terrifying to him. It was the unknown; it was frightening, but it was exciting. What if he were not enough for her? What if his own body repulsed her? What if there was something about her that revolted him? He was less aware of the makeup of the female body than he could ever admit, and this was something that frightened him in a way that could neither be discussed nor even expressed to himself in the darkness of his bed chambers.

  Garance, on the other hand, seemed to have changed this evening. She recognized her life had been threatened, her honor had been compromised, she had been on the verge of experiencing the most horrific thing that could ever happen to her. She had grown up in a world in which the latent violence of men had been a distant concept for her. Her parents had lived through the horrors of The Terror and the Napoleonic Wars, true, but she had been largely shielded from these horrors. Her world had been one in which kindness was rewarded and goodness was the normal state of affairs.

  When she had first met Jonathan backstage at Covent Garden, she saw men throwing themselves at her for the chance to take advantage of her, and then she met Jonathan. He was kind, he did good things, he was honorable, and he was a very beautiful person. For the first time in her life, she wanted to know what it was like to be with a good man, to love him entirely. And although she knew there might be a price to pay for this libertinage, she also thought she knew he was the man she wanted to marry. Given the terror she had experienced that evening, she needed his touch, his embrace, his comfort, and she wanted to give herself to him with all her heart.

  “Jonathan,” she said timidly. “I want you to stay with me tonight. I want to know what love is. Can you give me that?”

  He smiled. He, too, wanted to know what love was. He took her in his arms, and began to unfasten her buttons. Slowly, her true self was revealed. Her naked and true self, and it pleased him more than he could have ever imagined.

  She then helped him to remove his overcoat and began to unfasten his trousers and his shirt. Garance was impressed with every new revelation, and his powerful chest and strong arms were impressive as he stood like a Roman god before her, perfectly carved and beautiful. In a matter of moments, the two of them were there as Adam and Eve had been before the knowledge of good and evil. Before temptation became a frightening word for people.

  She held Jonathan tight, knowing he was the other half of herself. The half that was solid and strong, brave and immovable against the violence of the London slums. His body, revealed in all its glory, was something she had wondered about all her life, and seeing the power in his legs, his very beautiful legs, and seeing the power in his abdomen was a very strong and powerful feeling. Although he, too, knew she was his other half, and he laid her gently down on the bed, kissing her from her forehead to her navel, finally knowing what the forbidden fruit was, and knowing that it was not something evil or frightening. It was bliss; it was paradise; it was fulfillment.

  Garance took Jonathan gently in her arms and moved him to the spot he was frightened to go.

  “I want you to touch me,” she whispered. He obeyed her without a word. The feeling of rushing water overwhelmed her soul, and the joy of passion, a word she had never fully understood despite the many songs she had sung about it, began to reveal itself to her.

  Then, as he entered her, the heavenly bliss that had been promised to all womankind for eons was suddenly clear to her. The sensations charged through her body making this moment last at once for only a blinding second and also forever. Forever was the joy that greeted her as he moved in and out of her. The ecstasy and happiness that were whirling through her mind and around every small corner of her body as he touched her, caressed her, kissed her, and loved her was unbounded. He worked hard at pleasing her, and she was filled with joy at the sensations that tore through her body with a kind of heavenly light. She grasped him and helped him to find the places that were the source of more pleasant feelings, more joy, more ecstasy than anything she had ever known.

  Throughout the night, they held each other like two children lost in the woods, desiring only comfort and happiness.

  “Jonathan, you are more perfect than I have ever imagined,” she whispered into his ear.

  “And you, my darling, you are everything I have ever wanted in a woman. You are my savior and my true love. I shall be with you forever, if you will have me.”

  “And I will never let you go, if it be your will,” she replied, a smile of bliss on her face.

  Touching his body was something she had always been afraid to do, even in public and in the most innocent way. But this night, she knew the rules had changed. She knew there were urges she had that needed to be attended to, and she felt free to feel his chest, to caress the musculature of his abdomen, to dare to reach below and help him in his ministrations of love to her.

  He was very active in his adoration, and she appreciated every gentle thrust, each subtle touch, each tickle to her thigh, as it brought her to a place she never knew existed before. She had a strong sense that this lovemaking would make her a better singer, a much more accomplished interpreter of the love songs she preferred. Always before, she would sing them, but their true meaning was never clear enough to her. Now, the subtle kiss of his lips on her most tender parts revealed a truth no words could ever express. It was joy of a kind words failed to register.

  She pushed his long and beautiful auburn locks aside to reveal his red lips and his beautiful eyes. They were at the level with her waist and they were ministering to her in a way she had never experienced before, but she never wanted to stop. Something he was doing was jolting her sensibilities into a higher plane of existence. At one point, she stopped being able to think and her feelings, raw and animal as they were, took over, making her believe in immortality of the body as much as she always had believed in the immortality of the soul.

  Jonathan looked up to Garance, smiled, and as she pushed his head back, she sighed a deep, meaningful sigh of joy. “You will make me fall off the cliff!” she said.

  Jonathan heard these words coming from above him as he tasted her forbidden fruit, and smiled, thinking he was succeeding in standing out for her. He continued his ministrations until she began to breathe deeper and deeper, gasping for air, and then, once he sped up to keep in time with her gasps, a huge exhalation of air, and she said, in French: “J’arrive! J’arrive! J’arrive!” Jonathan smiled and kept going until her two hands grasped his head and pulled him a
way.

  “Jonathan,” she gasped. “You have succeeded. You have given me the love I never knew existed. One that will never grow old or change with the passing years. This is half divine and half animal, and I never want you to stop except I fear it may kill me. Hold me in your arms. Please!”

  Jonathan cradled her in his arms and slowly she fell into a deep sleep. He smiled and then laughed a small laugh, knowing he had touched her soul.

  Chapter Thirty

  The Next Morning

  As the hours passed, the morning came with the sun exploding over the city of London, providing a halo for both of them, an inexpressible happiness, the happiness of forbidden love, and love fulfilled. They slept through the morning, in each other’s arms, smiles on their faces, and joy coursing through their bodies.

  Garance woke up before Jonathan. The excitement of last night, in all its magnificence and its horror, washed over her, and an unexpected feeling came into her heart. Garance suddenly felt, to her horror, that she was a ruined woman.

  She had given away the most precious thing she could ever own: her womanhood, her honor. As she gazed on the beatific face of her lover, the horror of the real world descended on her. Social values were not something she had never paid a great deal of attention to, partly because she had noticed these values, considered to be immutable truths, changed from one country to another, from one class and one language to another.

  But she had been in England long enough to have absorbed the importance these people felt about keeping one’s virginity like a precious jewel. Indeed, she had felt this way long before she ever came to England. But the near miss of losing her most precious possession to a ruffian who would take her by force had caused her to lose her sense of right and wrong and, although she loved Jonathan and knew he loved her too, she gave away something only God can grant, the communion into her soul. They had not gone before a priest to have him bless their union. Instead, they had done it on their own, in a devious way, and somehow, despite her love for Jonathan, she felt dirty.

  As she was pondering these things, Jonathan awoke and turned to her. “Good morning, my love,” he said, smiling like one of the seraphim.

  “Good morning,” she replied, looking concerned.

  He immediately noticed this change in her. “What is wrong?”

  Garance looked longingly at him, and then tears began to trickle down her face. She tried to speak, but found she could not. She just looked at him and wept.

  “Garance!” said Jonathan. “What on earth is wrong? I experienced the greatest joy of all my life and imagine my concern when I awake to find the woman whom I love more than anyone in the world, weeping. What can have happened?”

  “I… I think I am… ruined!” she said and immediately began to sob. “It is too horrible!”

  “Garance, that is not so! I want you for my wife! Please believe I need you. I promise you, I shall never abandon you. I will tell my mother my intentions, and if I have to I shall travel across the Channel and beg your parents to let you marry me.”

  “It is impossible, Jonathan, and you know it!”

  “What is impossible?” he asked incredulously.

  “I am not a noble woman. It is a match that cannot be. And now, I may be with child, if what Camille tells me is true, then the humiliation will be too much to bear.”

  “What humiliation?” he asked utterly confused.

  “I shall be an unwed mother, and I shall have to bear the humiliation of a bastard child! My career is finished.”

  “Garance, I do not mean to be indelicate, but there is simply no way you are with child. And even if you were, horror of horrors, I shall marry you. I know in the confusion and excitement last night, I may have neglected to tell you, I have all the money left to pay back that cad, Alastair Kerr. And so, we are free, and I am now able to marry whoever I choose.”

  “But you still need someone with a fortune, do you not?”

  “Absolutely not! The estate pays for itself handsomely, as long as one does not fritter it away in gambling dens as my father did. But also, I have a debt of fifteen thousand guineas, and I have far more than twenty thousand. I actually have a surfeit of money! I shall go to repay it forthwith and come back and we shall make arrangements for marriage, if you’ll have me. Will you have me?”

  “Jonathan, my love, my soul, my blood, I have a career, and I must travel for my work. I cannot imagine this will work out in such a way that I can continue to travel, and you can take your place as head of the household in Lincolnshire.”

  “My angel,” he replied. “Perhaps you are not all that familiar with the role of the Earl in the British context. I was thinking I owe a small debt of gratitude to Uriah Screed, the gentleman who gave me the advice to play cribbage, and I should like to pay him a brief visit. It seems to me I could increase our fortune greatly by continuing in this vein. By your will, of course.”

  “I see,” said Garance. “So, my darling, your financial plan is to continue with your winning streak. Is that it?” She had a very quizzical look on her face.

  “Well, yes!”

  “My sweet and loving Jonathan, please forgive me, but that makes me even less able to join you in this lifestyle. For I shall never again be put in the position of being abducted by a cruel and barbarous man such as that Bagshot fellow. No, Jonathan, I simply cannot risk it. I admit it was very exciting, but I will never again put myself in that position.”

  “You know, Garance, you are my voice of reason. After all,” he declared, “this was the death of my father, and I shall not press my luck. This young man is out of the business of gambling.”

  “Oh Jonathan! That makes me very happy.”

  “And anyhow, I shall have to see if I can return to Oxford to finish my degree.”

  Garance began to weep silently again.

  “What is the matter now, my love?” he asked. “Surely you have nothing against Oxford.”

  “Only that it ensures we will never be married!”

  “Oh no,” he said, “I definitely want to marry you.”

  Garance looked at Jonathan, admiring the turn of his chin, the strong line of masculinity that gave him his powerful look. Overcome, she ran to him and embraced him with all her heart. “I am so happy right now, Jonathan. Of course, we will need to live in different places for the time being, but that can be worked out.”

  Jonathan had never considered this possibility before. “I suppose you are right,” he said. “I was told I needed a rich bride, and perhaps this is all too complicated. I now see your point of view.” He turned from her and pulled on his topcoat. “Perhaps it is impossible.” With that, he rose and made his way to the door. “May I see you again?” he asked, but Garance was so overcome with emotion that she could not answer, burying her face in her hands.

  After he left, Garance thought about the things she needed from Jonathan. After all, she was one of the most independent women she had ever known and had never felt herself tied in any way to a man. Even her accompanist, the brilliant and very handsome Cipriani Potter did not move her the way Jonathan did. It was Jonathan’s hands, his powerful and beautifully carved hands, that reminded her of the perfection of the Italian masters. His hands, strong and made up of curves from one point to another, were the thing she craved on her skin. And yet, it was this very action that had devastated her in the morning light. This thought brought tears to her eyes.

  Jonathan left, bewildered, and made his way to the business of Alastair Kerr in Cheapside in a rented hack. All the way, he thought about the mercurial nature of the woman he loved. What was it about him that made her behave in this way, he wondered? He tried to be attentive, and sometimes he lost his ability to be kindly because he was under so much strain, but overall, he felt he was behaving properly, and receiving a series of confusing messages in return.

  When he pulled up in front of the business of Alastair Kerr, which looked shockingly similar to that of Josiah Braithwaite, he paused for a moment.

/>   “That’ll be tuppence, My Lord,” said the driver.

  “I say, my man, if you could attend me here for ten or fifteen minutes, I shall give you half a crown.”

  “Are you joking?” said the driver, in disbelief.

  “Not at all. Just remain vigilant, as I may have to leave in rather a hurry.”

  “Dirty business, eh My Lord?” said the driver, laughing.

  “No, no!” said Jonathan, somewhat annoyed. “I simply have a bit of a scoundrel to repay, and I do not want to spend any more time with that fool than absolutely necessary.”

  “I understand My Lord,” said the driver, pocketing the tuppence he was handed from Jonathan. “I’ll await ye here.”

  Jonathan turned and walked to the large wooden door. There was a huge knocker on the door that he lifted. As it descended on the door, it made a terrifying and ghoulish knocking sound. Moments later, Alastair Kerr opened the door a crack.

  “Who’s that, then?” he asked, his one eye glaring out of the crack.