Chapter 14 #3
He shook his head stiffly. “I didn’t let him speak.
I made my voice louder than his, and I gainsaid him every time he opened his mouth.
I fought with everything I had until the provost finally allowed him to leave.
And then, I walked with Alex to the door so I could whisper that if he dared contradict my claims to anyone, I would never forgive him. ”
Alex had been dumbfounded. Alex, with the black tassel hanging haphazardly behind his ear, had looked at him with a mixture of confusion and anger. But most importantly, Alex had done as he was told and left.
“Why were you so insistent that the blame fall on your shoulders?” she asked, and he didn’t have to turn to detect the perplexity twisting her features. “Did you not have a care for your studies? Your reputation?”
A thick lump rose in his throat. “I—didn’t need to stay at university. I’d already obtained my bachelor’s degree, I …” I only remained at Cambridge because for as long as I was there, I didn’t have to choose between betraying my past or denying my future.
He didn’t give voice to the last part, to the buried truth within him that cut far too deeply for words. He skipped it instead, forcing himself to carry on with the remainder of the story.
“Alex needed it more,” he said roughly, and that part cut, too, gnawing at another longstanding ache. “He … requires a purpose, somewhere to focus his attention.”
Images of his brother flashed through his memory once more.
Alex sneaking away from the college after curfew, meeting Ben’s admonitions with a lazy grin.
Ah, Ben, don’t be such a prig. Alex with a quill in hand, scribbling furiously to get the latest tale he’d invented onto the page.
Alex refusing to rise from bed for the tenth day in a row, Alex with a brandy bottle in hand, Alex with the same sharp azure eyes as their father—
“He requires somewhere he’ll be safe from his own vices,” Ben choked out, digging his nails into his palms before the lump in his throat could get the better of him. “I had it in my power to give him that. Doing otherwise was never an option for me.”
He stared at green grass. Cerulean sky. He inhaled the strengthening scent of wildflower perfume, although his mind was spiraling backward, hurtling him into a dim study. Assaulting him with the harsh odor of gin, with the image of an overturned bottle. A limp hand.
“You understand, don’t you?” He spun his head to face her, finding she’d inched very close, and he didn’t recoil but drew closer still, his insides knotted with a strange desperation.
She must understand, this woman who’d sacrificed—who’d forgone her own desires and bound herself in marriage to him—on account of her sister.
And Violet—his unintended wife, a recent stranger, a woman with whom he might have more in common than he thought—nodded, her plush lips gently parting. “Yes.”
Yes. The knots within him snapped, a wave of tension draining from his shoulders. Her face was in front of his, sunlit and placid and beautiful, and she understood. She understood. He’d been right to trust her with his brother’s secret. Perhaps he could even consider her … an ally?
If only he hadn’t wasted so much time avoiding the subject, pretending it would magically disappear without consequence.
He released a long breath, sinking his fingers into the knees of his trousers before they got better ideas and clung to her gown instead.
“I’m sorry to have brought this scandal into our marriage.
I should have made you aware of it before we spoke our vows, so you weren’t unknowingly subjected to shame. ”
“But I’m not ashamed. Quite the contrary, actually.” She shifted, her skirts sweeping against his leg. Her eyes were so bright, so inviting, studying him more intently than ever. As if she saw what rested far below the surface. “Perhaps my initial instincts about you were correct, after all.”
His ears, his entire body, pricked. “What instincts?”
“I thought you were as rigid as a ramrod.” She said it unflinchingly, although the wry tilt of her mouth made it impossible for him to take offense.
Especially not when her bandaged hand reached out, her fingertips lightly falling atop his sleeve.
Lingering for an instant. “But I also suspected you were honorable. Good.”
He shut his eyes, the words seeping into his chest, closing around his heart. He tried, he tried so damn hard, to be honorable, but he often felt lately like he failed miserably and got everything wrong. But Violet still recognized his intentions. She saw him.
She saw him, and when his eyelids drifted open, he saw her, too: the woman who shared his home and his name. The woman who was all color and light, strength and passion. The woman who sharpened his senses and made him want things he never had before.
He dared to raise his hand, to let a lone fingertip skirt against the curve of her chin, and to utter words he hadn’t thought he’d say. “May I kiss you, Violet?”
Her breath hitched, the quiet sound hitting like a shower of sparks upon his skin. Her lashes fluttered; her face tipped upward.
And all at once, their lips were aligned, pressing together in a gentle embrace.
He’d known she was soft, had recognized it from that first day when he’d held her ankle within his palm. However, he couldn’t have anticipated how her lips would be like pillows, plump and inviting. How he would wish to sink into them and never emerge.
He brought a hand to her nape, splaying his fingers across her collar, her skin, the tendrils that hung from her coiffure. Everything was warm and delicate, and he absorbed the sensation, lightly holding her against him as he explored the wonder that was her mouth.
She held him, too, her hands running through his hair, drifting down his back. And the more they each took, the more he wanted. She was sweet, so sweet, and he let his tongue emerge, carefully tracing over the edge of her lip. Her body flexed, a keening noise rising in her throat.
Which made him halt, his fingers stiffening against her nape.
Had he overstepped? There was such a thin line between pleasure and pain. Between sounds of distress and sounds of yearning.
Good. I needn’t be inconvenienced, then. Her words on their wedding night, when he’d informed her he wouldn’t visit her chamber. She’d been prepared to do her duty in the marriage bed, but … but did she want to?
He’d gotten carried away, letting newfound desire trump reason. God, he hadn’t even finished what he set out to do and solve the mystery of the open door. The moment for that, though, had passed.
“Forgive me.” He drew away, allowing his fingers a final brush over the soft flesh at her nape before returning his hands to his lap. “I should get back. I have another meeting scheduled with the solicitor.”
“Benedict …” He didn’t know what to make of the way she said his name.
It was part breath, part admonition, part …
plea? But whatever it meant, she followed it with a brief sigh—not angry, only resigned—and repositioned herself against the tree trunk.
“All right. I’m going to remain here for a while and read.
Achilles can stay with me if he’d like.” She glanced toward the sleeping dog who lay sprawled out beneath the sunshine, then turned back to him, her lips kiss-swollen and pink. “Will I see you at dinner?”
It was a simple question, yet the answer gave him pause. Instinct demanded he remain in his study until nightfall, shielded from the matter of uncertain kisses and of another type of uncertain intimacy, forged beneath the veil of darkness as a door—possibly—hung ajar.
Except he didn’t want to stay shut away from her. Something between him and Violet had altered, broken free, and if he could trust her with the truth of the pamphlets … well, maybe those other subjects were also worth confronting, when the time was right.
“Yes,” he said, straightening his spine, and he didn’t regret his answer, even as it made his stomach flip.
“All right,” she repeated gently. She reached for her book, finding the place where she’d left off and immersing herself in the text. Not looking up again.
He did as he said, rising from the comfortable place they’d created beneath the tree, brushing off his trousers, and turning to leave. At least, that’s what he did after taking one last moment to survey the unparalleled beauty of the scene.
The last thing he saw before striding away was the hint of her smile.