Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
“Iwill speak to the captain for you.” Lord George spoke suddenly into the silence between them, but still did not meet her eye.
She stared at him. Perhaps it was far easier to watch the glint of the sunlight on the water as it rushed towards the dock, than meet her gaze. “Speak – speak to the captain?”
He did not need to look at her, see the furrow of her brow, to hear the confusion in her voice. She could barely hold back, but waited for him to speak.
“I am sure that after a brief conversation, I will be able to broker an agreement, gentleman to gentleman, to reduce your travel costs.”
“Reduce my – my travel costs?” Florence stared at him in confusion. What did he think of her? “My dear man, I am not so poor I cannot afford my own travel: how did you think I was going to pay for it in the first place?”
A breeze blustered through the dockyard, and the shouting of men was deafened for a moment as Florence herself felt deafened by his silence.
“I may not be as rich as you,” she said curtly, and this, finally, seemed to draw his gaze towards her, “but I am quite capable of making my own way in the world, grazie.”
“I did not mean – ” Lord George spoke hastily, but then he cut himself off and stared down at her, a flash of an emotion she did not recognise moving across his face. “I just thought it would be helpful, that was all. It is clear you do not have copious funds, and – ”
“Copious funds,” Florence repeated. “Clear? Sì, quite clear.”
They had only been inches apart, close enough to touch, to embrace, but now she took a step backwards and laughed.
Lord George swallowed, and moved towards her but she continued away from him. “Do not take offence, Florence, not when it is not meant.”
“Miss Capria to you,” she said, and she saw the hurt in his eyes now, a pain deep and yet so far away from her. “Perhaps you are richer than me, bene, that does not mean I need your charity.”
“I just – I thought you were not leaving.” His words were not pleading, nowhere near, but they did contain just a little hint of sadness.
Florence found her heart softening, despite herself. Here, then, was the emotion that had been lacking before. It was still there: that connection they had, that they had experienced so wantonly, that they had relished in just hours before.
She glanced up at him through her dark eyelashes, and saw that heady mixture of strong confidence and self-consciousness. Here was a man, the ideal of the Italian: bold and courageous, with raw emotion threatening to overwhelm at any moment.
“You said last – last night,” said Lord George, drawing closer to her, causing that heart, that treacherous heart, to start beating faster again. “You said you would not leave England. I hoped – thought, I suppose, that you would stay.”
“Stay?” She breathed.
A pressure on her hand: it was his own, and it was resting on hers in a way that made her spine tingle.
“Stay,” he repeated, his dark eyes pouring into hers.
Florence found her breathing was shallow now, and rapid, completely out of her control. Perhaps it was his presence, perhaps the firm grip of his hand that hours ago had been caressing every part of her, perhaps the overwhelming – and welcome – idea that he was asking her to stay.
But was he? She blinked as she considered that handsome face, and tried to think. Had he asked her directly, or had he just . . . said it?
“Lord George,” she said, shakily, “are you asking me to stay here in England?”
She watched him swallow, and her heart slowed once more.
“Staying is certainly an option,” he said in a deep voice. “One that I would like you to consider.”
Florence dropped her gaze. “So you are not asking me to stay. You are merely pointing out staying here is a choice that I could make. Not that you would . . . would like me to make it.”
If only she could see inside past those dark curls, and into Lord George Northmere’s mind. He was thinking, and thinking hard, but his thoughts were so rapid he did not even seem to have the power to transfer them to his tongue.
“It really is your choice,” he said finally. “Of course I would like it if you stayed, but you must make the decision for yourself.”
It was only at that moment, as his words rang in her ears and a few men passed them on their way to their day’s labour, that Florence understood what she had been hoping for.
A proposal of marriage was unlike anything she had expected to receive on that blustery Tuesday, but since last night – since she had opened herself to him, lost all thought of consequence and just laid herself bare to desire; then he must have known what she had wanted.
To be with him all the days of her life.
To be with him all day and under him every night. To be his wife.
The laugh that she forced sounded hollow and harsh, even in Florence’s own ears. “I will need a great more security before I give up on returning to my homeland, my lord!”
She removed her hands, and the moment was over.
“Security?” Lord George blinked at her, utterly lost. “What kind of security?”
Mio Dio, marriage was so far from his mind than even when presented with it as an option, he was completely lost!
“It is of no matter,” Florence said haughtily, though her throat hurt from trying not to cry. “I will speak to the captain now, and organise my things to be brought here directly. I no longer have any need of your assistance, Lord George Northmere. Good day.”
“Good . . . good day?”
She barely caught his words on this breeze as she had taken three steps towards the ship in question – but where she had hoped to hear remorse, or even (dare she even admit it to herself) words of love, she was to be disappointed.
“You are leaving then? You are actually going?”
Florence turned on her heels and stared at him. “What?”
“I just,” said Lord George, and his voice cracked with emotion that finally met the surface. “I tried to convince myself I was not the reason why everyone left: my parents, my brothers, Honoria. And yet here you are, leaving me!”
“Going, not going, staying, not staying!” Florence almost exploded with frustration. “What business is it of yours? I asked you for your opinion, you refused to give it, and in that moment, you forfeited any right to demand I act in any particular way!”
She stared at him, and noticed his fists were clenched; perhaps in anger, perhaps in frustration, she could not tell. She did not know Lord George Northmere well enough to discern.
Few did. George tried to bottle down the confusion and the desperation to keep her with him, and fought the pathetic desire to beg her to remain with him. Had he not said all he could?
“I am asking you to stay.” The words had tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them, and a sense of relief washed over him as he did so. At least now she knew how she had touched his heart.
But for some reason, there was nothing but bitterness on her face.
“Stay. That is all you can offer me, ‘stay’. George, I want . . . surely you can see I want more?”
There was a stain of pink on her cheeks now, and the wind tugged at her hair, drawing a curl across her face that masked her embarrassment.
George stared at her. Could she be asking him to . . . no. “What can you possibly expect of me?” He spluttered. “Marriage? I have known you but one day, what madman does such a thing?”
“It is not so strange,” Florence shot back, and George felt a stirring within him, a flutter of hope, of confusion, of desperate longing and acceptance that he can never have her – a medley of pain and pleasure he could not decipher. “But evidently, no. You do not wish it.”
Now was the moment, George knew, to speak up. To say that throwing caution to the wind and ignoring convention, of finding his hope and happiness in her forever would be his delight, that he loved her.
Loved her. Did he love her? Was this raging passion love, or was it just lust? How could he tell? Could he really commit himself, forever, to a woman he had met less than a day ago, on a hunch?
The flicker of joy in Florence Capria’s eyes died. “I see.”
Panic flooded his lungs. “No – no, you do not!”
“‘Tis of no matter,” she said dully. “I cannot change my plans simply because I got lost with you, and neither can you, I see that.”
George didn’t have the words. “No, no I do not mean – but I also do not mean – Florence, wait!”
The woman that sparked such intense emotions in him was walking away, and in a desperate moment of panic, his hand shot to his pocketbook.
If he could not be with her, at least he could provide for her.
“Here; here take it.” One inelegant movement tried to place a ten pound note into her reticule, but she shook him off.
“Have I not told you before? I do not want your charity.”
Exasperated, he tossed his head. “You know full well I do not intend it as charity, it is more a – a sign of my goodwill, I suppose, from friendship. From gratitude, for last night. . .”
At first, Florence did not entirely catch his meaning. She stood there silently, her hair unpinned and freely flowing down her back like a waterfall, the cold breeze chilling her hands as the realisation of what he meant chilled her heart.
“Your pity and your misplaced gratitude for what happened last night,” she spat, that Italian temper that she saw no reason to hide now rising up through her throat leaving a bitter taste and overcoming her tongue, “are not wanted, my Lord.”
She turned, barely able to see, completely unable to think, just able to feel. The ship seemed to sway before her, or was that her own luggage moving side to side? Was he really trying to –
“Florence!”
But she was on the gangplank now, and she was moving quickly, and the captain’s hands were reaching out and in a split second she was aboard, ready to disappear, ready to leave this wretched island, once and for all.
“I suppose I should know better!” His words rang out into the morning air, and Florence winced to hear the bitterness and hurt in his tones. “No woman of good reputation would ever get lost with me; you must be a courtesan after all! Here, Miss Florence: your earnings.”
And then banknotes, fluttering and cascading in the air, great shrieks and shouts from others walking up the dockyards, and the ship moved, and as Florence was taken away down the Thames she did not look away from the tall man with the strong shoulders and tormented eyes.