Chapter 20 #2
“The French call it la petite mort.” He smiled and leaned down to place his lips upon hers. Speaking into her mouth, he said, “The little death.”
Natalie kissed him back, openmouthed. “And now, I am still here. I must be reborn.” She felt reborn, no longer a girl but a woman.
Twisting and writhing, she stretched like a cat.
He removed his hand and pulled her chemise down to cover her.
As he moved to sit up, she could not help but ask, “What about you?”
Garrett shook his head. “I will be fine.” It was then Natalie sensed a change in him. Sitting back from her now, he rested one arm upon his knees and looked away from her, off across the meadow.
His easy smile had disappeared. As though fighting a battle within himself, he grudgingly spoke his next words.
“I will marry you if you feel ill-used. But I know it is not something you or your family want.” He forced his gaze to return to hers.
“I haven’t much to offer, but what I have is yours, if you wish. ”
She had not felt ill-used.
Not until he chose to speak to her with all the romance of a mallet!
His words hit her like a bucket of ice water. The closeness vanished. She suddenly, ridiculously, felt alone and exposed. He’d gone from lover to stranger in the blink of an eye.
She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing how much he’d hurt her.
“Have I fallen so low, then?” she asked, with as much disdain as she could summon while sitting on the crushed grass in her chemise. “That I am to consider a proposal, a boorish and grudging proposal, from one such as you? From the Earl of Hawthorne, no less?”
Scrambling to her feet, she gathered her stays about herself.
If only she could simply walk away from him.
But she was unclothed, and she could not make herself presentable without assistance.
“Help me with this,” she commanded. “And don’t look at me like that, as I’m not about to say ‘please’ or any other such nonsense. ”
She clenched her fists at her sides, her fingernails digging into her palms, as Garrett tugged at the laces of her stays.
How had he expected her to respond? Nearly shaking in her anger, she barely noticed when he gathered her dress from the ground and brushed the grass from it.
Without a word spoken, he dropped it over her head.
She pushed her arms into the sleeves, and he fastened it as well.
“I do apologize,” he said. “I had not thought my proposal would be such an offense to your dignity.”
Natalie wanted to put her face in her hands and weep. What a stupid, stupid man! Oh, how she hated him!
“Perhaps, my lord”—she would not look at him—“it was not the proposal itself, but the manner in which the gentleman presented it.” She snatched up her jacket and hat and would have stormed off if only she could locate her boots.
Oh, where were they? She glanced around to no avail.
“Looking for these?” Garrett had a sad little smile on his face as he dangled her half boots by their laces in front of him.
When she went to grab them from him, he seized her wrist and stepped toward her instead. “You know it is not what you want.” He pulled her close and held tight to her as though she were a child in need of comfort. “You are just recently free of an unwanted betrothal.”
Natalie did not know what to say. Should she tell him she loved him? Did she? Upon such short acquaintance was it even possible? Or had the furtive glances and seductive stares they’d exchanged throughout the previous two seasons begun all this long ago?
Could she attach herself to a man judged to be a pariah by society? A man who carried tainted blood? A sob escaped her.
She did not want to cry.
“I do not feel ill-used by you,” she said. “I think you an honorable man.” He could have taken her completely. She’d offered no resistance and probably would not if he chose to do so now.
She felt his lips move, pressed upon the top of her head as he spoke. “I know you want a love match. I know you wish for a family. It is not possible.” He pulled her down to the ground, into his lap.
“My father was not just an evil man, but a mad one. Something was broken inside of him. As a youth, there were times when I thought he ought to be locked away from other people. But he always returned to his own strange type of normalcy, and all seemed settled.” He rocked her as he spoke.
“He could be violent, and he could be oddly tender. There were periods when he would work in his office, drafting bills and documents for Parliament as though the fate of the world rested upon his shoulders, and then there were other times when he would not come out of his bedchamber for days. As a boy, I was terrified of him.”
Natalie understood. “You are fearful that his disease could appear in your own children.”
He exhaled long and slow. “Yes. Or even in myself.”
Blinking away tears, Natalie twisted around to look at him. She did not know very much about this. But just as her brothers shared similarities in appearance with their father and she shared the good looks of her mother, she presumed it was possible to share other traits as well.
“You will never have any children, then?” she asked.
“I will do what I can to help the tenants and the workers prosper on my father’s properties, but the title will go into abeyance upon my death.” She did not like to hear him speak of his own demise. His words made her overwhelmingly sad.
To think he would never be a father nearly broke her heart. She remembered the gentleness in him when he’d handled Baby Bear.
This was a travesty! No, a tragedy—for God help her, she loved him! She’d fallen in love with Garrett Castleton, the Earl of Hawthorne.
Had she told herself she would feel thusly a sennight ago, she would have been the first to laugh. Well, the joke was on her.
Because she wished for nothing more in that moment than to place her hand in his and promise to love him and to help him for the rest of their lives.
“That is why I could not love you properly this afternoon. It is why I cannot offer myself to you as a proper husband.”
He could not love her properly…Did he love her at all? He’d never said so.
Was this merely a handy excuse on his part? A pretext for avoiding the parson’s trap?
“A proper husband.” She repeated his words thoughtfully. The words left a bitter taste in her mouth.
Garrett ran his fingers through her hair and began twisting it into a knot. Reaching down, he pulled something from his pocket, and she felt him slipping the pins back into her hair.
“I could use a new lady’s maid.” She could jest. Otherwise, she might burst into tears. Today had been distressing. And now she felt his lips trailing along her nape. Oh, how he knew her weaknesses!
Garrett settled her hat upon her head. “I would suggest foregoing the jacket.” He sounded far too practical. “I don’t want you fainting from the heat.”
He turned her head so she would look at him again. “And if there isn’t a duke out there waiting for you, I trust there will be some other equally lofty young man who will love you for yourself, who will give you babies and romance and everything you long for.”
He was going to make her angry again.
He could not love her if he was so eager to thrust her upon any other man who might happen along. Very well then. She was not so very needy.
“Well, allow me to thank you then, for introducing me to la petite mort. For I now know what one of my demands will be before I commit to another betrothal.” She pushed herself away from him and donned her boots. Standing, she brushed at her skirt and then offered him her hand.
He stared blankly at it for a moment before grasping it in his and allowing her to pull him up. Once standing, he held out his arm, but she ignored it and walked away from him instead.
Striding through the dense trees, she couldn’t help thinking there was more than one type of petite mort. For a small piece of her heart seemed to have died just now. She would not cry. She would not.