Chapter 11 #2
“And the fact is that you cannot control me, which you also don’t like. Have never liked. So as for your offer to let me into the fold, as long as I dance to your tune, I think I shall have to decline.”
“After all these years, I don’t think anyone in this family would be so foolish as to believe anyone could control you. Christ, you can’t even control yourself,” Reg said, taking a step toward him.
Phoebe got up, holding up a hand like she feared the two men would come to blows. “Don’t do this. Please.”
Silas glanced toward her. “I don’t intend to do anything, Phoebe, I promise you. For all I’ve been accused of being out of control, it’s our dear brother who you need be concerned about when it comes to throwing blows. I don’t care enough to do so.”
Both his brothers flinched at that and Phoebe sucked in a sharp breath. He wished for a brief moment that he could take that last sentence back. He didn’t mean it, after all. But he had to start, it seemed. He drew in a shaky breath.
“Years ago, I might have jumped at the offer to be a real part of his family,” he continued.
“I would have loved it. But I gave up on that decades ago. I am here. I’ve come at your beckoning, my lord.
But the loving family ship sailed long before the one that took me to America.
And I will be sailing back to my life there in a few weeks.
Then none of you will have to be concerned about what I do or who I fuck. ”
He pivoted on his heel and exited the room, ignoring Phoebe calling his name as he did so. He had held his head high as he stormed down the dark path to the stable for his horse instead of waiting for it to be brought to him.
But as he thundered from the drive, the emotions he wished he didn’t feel rose up in him. Regret, anger…loss. Pain. He hated those weaknesses. Hated that he had felt a swell of hope at the idea of being a real family before he was brought back to reality.
He wanted it to stop. And he knew one way to make sure it would.
* * *
A rabella loved going out, playing her games, wearing her costumes, but the nights she planned to stay in were always a relief.
There was something so comfortable about wearing her flannel dressing gown and wrapping her hair in rags so it would have a curl the next day.
Then she’d sit before her fire and talk to her sisters if they were there, or read a book and sip madeira if they weren’t.
Tonight she was alone, for Julia was the only one living at Arabella’s home at present and she was out with a friend for the night.
Arabella tucked her bare feet up next to her on the settee and pressed her chin into her hand as she turned the page of her book, reveling in the story she was in the middle of at present, an adventure tale of a man traveling around the world.
One who made her think of Silas from time to time.
When there was a light knock on the parlor door, she lifted her gaze in surprise. “Yes?”
Barnaby opened it and inclined his head. “I’m so sorry to intrude, Miss Comerford. I did try to tell the gentleman that you were not in residence, but he asked me to check again and seemed quite wild about it.”
She blinked. “Who?”
But she knew the answer. She felt it in her bones.
“Mr. Windham, miss.”
“Of course it is,” she said, and bent her head. “Well, let him come.”
“Do you want a moment to prepare?” Barnaby asked.
She swallowed. She must have her emotions on her face if he was asking her that. She nodded and he left her. She got to her feet and paced the room, shaking out her hands to get the tingles that now worked through them to stop.
It had been two days since she left Silas.
Since she threatened his temporary butler so he would get better treatment.
She hadn’t stopped thinking about him since.
Hadn’t stopped running over and over in her mind how her protective instincts had come out and how wrong that was.
How it violated every rule she had about the men she took into her life and her body and her bed.
And now he was here and somehow she had to stop her heart from throbbing and her body from trembling like she was some little innocent about to meet with a man for whom she had a tendre .
“Stop,” she ordered herself.
It didn’t work and her door opened again. She faced it and saw Barnaby’s brow wrinkle before he announced, “Mr. Windham.”
He stepped away and Silas entered the room. He had a fiery expression to his face, one that faded as he looked at her. When Barnaby had closed the door behind him, Silas stepped forward.
“That’s a new look for you, Arabella.”
She gasped as she realized what she was wearing and what was in her hair. She reached up and touched the little rags rolled through her locks to curl them.
“Oh damn, that was why he asked me if I needed a moment,” she gasped, and began to unknot the little pieces of fabric.
Silas laughed and moved forward. “I actually think you look adorable.”
“Well, adorable isn’t the effect I’m ever going for,” she huffed, still tugging the fabric away.
“A pity,” he said, and reached out to slide one of the strips of fabric out of her hair gently. “But I suppose we all wear masks, don’t we?”
She wrinkled her brow because his playfulness had gone now and the intensity she had felt from him when he entered the room had returned.
“I suppose we must,” she said carefully. “Are you well?”
“Perfectly well,” he said, but that was clearly not true as he began to pace the room. He looked rather like a caged predator then. Restless and sleek and dangerous beyond the bars. But also lost. Longing to be free.
Something had happened. She ought to make herself not care about that, but she couldn’t. She did care. It was too late.