Chapter 12 #3
“We cannot do this.” With both hands, carefully, he slid her to the floor, set her on her feet. Her knees threatened not to hold her.
“We can,” she said stubbornly. She reached for his coat, for the band of his breeches. “There is nothing to stop us.”
He shied away from her touch, rising from the chair. The distance between them was cold and terrible. There was something like despair in his eyes.
“I cannot,” he said.
“Will not,” she cried. “But why? Do you not desire me?”
Reason had left her long ago, with the first touch of his lips to her breasts. She didn’t think about what she was doing, the wisdom of it, the danger. She only knew she wanted that control to snap. She wanted him in her arms, in her hands, convulsing, helpless. Surrendered to his want. To her.
“Do you not desire me?” Her bodice was already open; she flung it off and threw it to the floor. A yank of the string freed her petticoat, and she kicked it aside. Her stays took a moment longer, and she fumbled with the laces.
“Inez.” He sounded like a man who was dying of thirst, throat dry as a bone. He held out his hand, palm up in denial. “Do not.”
“Do not what? Do not want you? It is too late for that.”
With a fierce yank she shed her stays. It took only a moment to lift her shift from her head. She wanted to goad him. She wanted him to break. She stood before him in all her naked glory, shivering with rage and cool air and a frustration that made her want to howl to the heavens.
“I am yours,” she said, tears welling in her throat with her anger. “Take me.”
He stepped backward. The brute. The callous, unfeeling cad. She stood trembling before him, stripped to her essence, and any other man would have been on her in an instant, falling over himself to thrust his member inside her and find release. There could be no more blatant invitation.
And Joseph looked at her as if she had sunk a knife into his bowels.
“We…I…” He fumbled, squeezed his eyes shut like a man upon the rack. Then he did her the kindness of looking her straight in the eye as he sank in the knife. “I cannot.”
Her mind went back to another embrace, when she had held his cock in his hand and he had shuddered and spent at her touch. She had thought it a victory. She had thought it a sign of want.
“Have you never been with a woman?” she demanded. “Do you not know what to do?”
That was cruel, and she knew it, and yet there was still satisfaction as the accusing words flew from her mouth and landed. Suddenly, everything made sense.
Joseph did not visit places like Dark Lane.
He did not boast of his conquests. He did not approach women on the streets, nor bring them to his house.
When he had come to her in her bed and spilled in her hand, his look of astonishment had not simply been because she was so potent.
It might have been the first time a woman touched him and he understood the pleasure it could bring.
He drew himself up with dignity. His neckcloth was crumpled where she had pressed against him.
There was a crease in his coat where she had clutched at him while he kissed her breasts and made her shudder with ecstasy.
He still had a cockstand; she could see it.
But he merely gave her a formal little bow, as if he were in the ducal drawing room and she was one of the duchess’s friends.
“I will be going now,” he said. “Thank you for dinner.”
And then he was gone.
Inez let her knees give out and sank to the side of the bed. She shivered and reached for her shift.
She could weep, but she had wept already. Now was the time for something else.
Not rage. That had disappeared. She didn’t hate him.
She could never hate him. She had lived with this man for nearly two years, and she knew him to his soul.
He fed the stray cats that came to his door, and there was one particular tabby she had found, more than once, making a bed on a cushion in his study while he read and wrote.
He had never once scolded Amaranthe for the food and clothing she gave away, even if it was his money he had contributed to the household funds.
He grumbled about the little costermonger spying on him, but he always made sure she went through the kitchens when she left.
He paid the street sweeps a ha’penny instead of a farthing, and he regularly invited to dinner his scholarly friends who were looking for posts and going hungry.
How many of his old students called at the house to tell him of their doings, report on their progress, take pride in his pride in them? Joseph Illingworth was a rare, good man and she was utterly, utterly in love with him.
If it were not her he objected to, but merely inexperience, then she required a different approach to seduce him. Inez brewed another cup of Mrs. Truckle’s tea and stood regarding the leavings of dinner.
Then she dressed once more, went to the table, and finished her meal. She was a woman with a mission, and it would be wise to fortify herself for the task ahead.
She was a woman searching for a home, and unless she was very much mistaken, it was him.
All was not lost.
Not yet.