Chapter Fourteen #2
The words were so close on his tongue. So close, and yet he could not bring himself to say them.
I love you.
Where did that lead? Reginald had been in half a mind to break off the engagement a few days ago, and now he was teetering on the edge of revealing his heart for her.
This was madness. This was intoxication. This was—
“Ah, I do apologize, Miss Chance,” said a voice from the door.
Reginald would have sprung back from Jessica if he had been as close as he wished to be. As it was, the sudden intrusion of the Chances’ butler by the door, a pair of footmen behind him, was still quite the imposition.
“We came to close the drawing room for the night, Miss Chance, but I see that you are still up,” the butler said with a bow in their direction. “We shall come back, then.”
“We shall be going up directly,” said Jessica. “Up to bed. I mean—”
“Separate beds,” interjected Reginald hastily, heat burning across his torso.
“Yes, yes, separate beds.”
“One bed would be ridiculous.” He tried to laugh, hating the look of agonized discomfort on the servants’ faces.
“Yes, yes, ridiculous, two beds—”
“Two beds in separate rooms!” Dear God, why can’t I stop talking?
“Of course,” the butler said, cutting across them both and causing Reginald’s shoulders to droop in relief. “I shall return in an hour and close down the room. Good evening, Miss Chance, my lord.”
The butler and the red-faced footmen disappeared, the last to exit closing the door behind the three of them, and Jessica fell against the back of the sofa.
“Oh, dear Lord.”
“Yes, that did rather get away from us, didn’t it?” mused Reginald, attempting to grin.
Yes, that’s it, keep it light. Do not focus on the fact that you just tried desperately to convince a butler that you were not going to bed a woman of the family he serves…
The silence that fell about them now was at least less awkward than their ramblings at the servants, but that was not saying very much.
Eventually, he would have to say something, obviously, just as soon as he worked out what the words should be.
At that time, he would say something. Any moment now. Any moment.
“You know, I was very suspicious of you. When you first arrived here at Stanphrey Lacey, I mean.”
Reginald’s focus snapped to the woman beside him. “You were?”
Jessica nodded, her smile lilting and her presence enthralling. “Oh, yes. What man decides to turn up, uninvited, to a family house party and request the hand of a woman he has never met before?”
It was difficult to nod, but he just about managed to. It had been rather a reckless idea, hadn’t it? “I am that sort of man, I suppose.”
“It was natural to feel suspicious, and I… I did not know whether you were the sort of man I could trust,” Jessica continued, her wallflower tendencies overcome as she stared steadily at him. “I did not know whether you were the sort of man who could make me happy.”
Reginald swallowed. Was… Was it possible that after all his agonizing, all his concerns that he should break off this engagement—as outrageous as that would be—that Jessica… that she was going to break it off?
The pain of the thought was like a dagger to the heart and just as unwelcome.
And just as unexpected. Why did it hurt so much, the thought of losing her?
“You have earned my trust,” Jessica said simply.
He stared, expecting more. “I… I have?”
Her smile was a little too knowing. “You do not have to sound so surprised.”
“No, no, not surprised,” Reginald said hastily, the lie swift on his tongue.
“The way you have treated my family, your behavior while you have been staying here, every moment you have proven yourself to be an honorable young man,” Jessica was saying, her eyes bright as she looked at him with…
There was no other word for it: adoration.
“My mother was a tad concerned at first—”
“I knew she didn’t like me,” Reginald said in an undertone.
Jessica laughed as she tapped him playfully on the arm.
“She does like you! It’s just—well, I am their eldest daughter, and none of us, not even my older brother, has married yet.
It is her first time, letting a child go free.
And you—you have earned her trust. She is happy now that you are going to marry me.
That you are going to care for me, for the rest of my life. ”
Reginald tried to swallow again, but for some reason, his throat wasn’t working. “Yes. Yes. Care for you.”
And the damnedest thing was, he did want to care for her.
Considering he’d almost hoped he wouldn’t care much for his bride, due to the fact that he’d be dragging her into his family’s scandal, it was frustrating in the extreme to fall in love with his future wife, but there did not appear to be any way to prevent it.
What man could help but fall in love with Miss Jessica Chance?
“And I realized I had never—you probably don’t even care,” she was saying, her throat noticeably bobbing as she swallowed. “But I thought you should know. I thought it might be important. You have earned my trust and my… my admiration. And I wanted you to know.”
Jessica’s gaze did not waver as she stared, and he could see the veracity of her words in every syllable.
She did trust him—and admire him, and what man did not enjoy being admired?
The trouble was, he was not worthy of her admiration. Damnit, Reginald had lied to her, her and her whole family, from the moment he had arrived here. He had been lying to Society for weeks, from the moment he had received the discreet notice from the law courts.
His brother was a traitor. He would be caught soon.
And here she was, the woman he cared about more than he dared to admit, telling him that he was admirable.
Damn.
“I know my regard means nothing to you,” Jessica said suddenly, and she reached out and took his hand in hers.
Reginald looked down at the interlocking fingers, twisting with an emotion he was not going to allow himself to name.
“But I wanted to let you know,” she continued softly. “You’re important to me, Reginald, and I do not like keeping my esteem for you a secret. I feel like you are owed the truth in this matter. I… I care about you. Very much.”
Well, there was no choice. He would have to say it.
“Jessica,” Reginald said, his mouth dry.
She looked up at him with such trusting eyes that a fierce surge of protective instincts threatened to overwhelm him. She was so precious. He would do anything, anything to protect her.
Even if that meant protecting her from himself.
“Yes?” Jessica prompted, after he had fallen into silence.
Reginald swallowed. What he had been about to say was suddenly no longer appropriate, but he wished desperately to say something. Something had to be said.
He had to tell her how he felt. How conflicted he felt. How twisted he was inside, how desperate he was to please her and yet he worried that by attempting to do so, he would rain down disgrace onto her family.
“Just say it,” she whispered, her wide eyes not leaving his. “Whatever it is you want to say.”
Reginald opened his mouth, and the floodgates opened. “I love you.”
Jessica’s gasp caught, just for a moment. “I… I beg your pardon?”
She was really going to make him say it twice, wasn’t she? Well, he could hardly blame her, and now the admission had been made, there was nothing more that he wanted to do than keep telling her. Keep telling her over and over again that he loved her.
“I love you,” he said in a rush, his lips broadening into a grin. “God, I love you, Jessica. I love the way you look at the world, I love your gentleness, and your compassion—”
“Reginald,” Jessica said quietly.
But it wasn’t enough to stem the tide. “When I’m with you—dear God, when I’m with you, I am absolutely useless. I cannot think of anything else—”
“Reginald—”
“And it’s even worse when I’m not with you,” Reginald admitted, unable to stop himself from laughing. “Do you know what it is, to have your mind always drifting off to wonder where you are, and if you’re well, and—”
“Reginald!”
He halted. “Yes?”
Only then did he notice just how her eyes were blazing—only then did he spot the signs. The dilated pupils. The way she was leaning into him.
“Kiss me,” Jessica ordered with a whisper.
He did not need telling twice. Pulling the sumptuous woman into his arms and almost weeping with relief now that they were touching again, Reginald poured upon her lips a series of achingly sweet kisses—until she parted her lips and showed him that she wanted more.
Far more.
She was sweet, tasting of honey and need, and it was enough to stiffen all the sinews Reginald had been attempting desperately not to stiffen. Her touch, feathering down his neck to his shoulders, only stoked the fires that were swiftly burning to a white-hot flame.
“Jessica,” he breathed, his voice jagged and his need aching.
“Reginald,” she whispered, taking one of his hands and—
He could not help but groan. Dear God, she had placed it on her breast.
Jessica looked up, immediately worried. “I-I am sorry, I—”
“Never apologize for encouraging me to touch you,” Reginald said darkly, capturing her lips before she could reply.
At least, before she could reply in words. Her response was easy enough to understand as she pressed her breast into his hand and clung to him, her tongue teasing along his own as her kisses became bolder.
Dear God. He was inflamed, utterly unable to stop himself from kissing this woman.
Exactly how they had managed to become horizontal, Reginald did not know.
Precisely when her gown had become unbuttoned at the front, the edges of her chemise showing, Reginald did not know.
Why the floodgates had suddenly opened, Jessica giving herself and more to him in a new way, Reginald did not know.
But he did know one thing. He loved Jessica Chance. He loved her, and the best way to love her now was to let her go.
He couldn’t do this to her—he cared too much. Marrying Jessica would be condemning her to a life of stares and scandal, of disdain and dishonor.
He would not do that to her. He had to break this off.
“Jessica,” Reginald said, his heart breaking as he looked at the woman he would, never see again. “I—”
“I think,” Jessica interrupted, her smile nervous yet remaining. “I think we should go upstairs.”
He exhaled heavily. Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow, he would tell her precisely that he could not marry her, that she could not ask why, but she had to trust that he had her best interests at heart, that her family would surely keep quiet the fact that they had ever been alone together, and her reputation would remain intact—
“Upstairs to my bedchamber,” Jessica continued, her eyes never leaving his own. “The two of us. I… I think it’s time you took me to bed.”