Chapter Fourteen #2
A stifled sound in his throat startled me back into the world. His hand fell away from my face. How long had it been since someone touched me so intimately? When Rosie kissed me goodbye, seven months ago.
“Forgive me,” Godric said, his voice a rumble.
I stared at him, my mind reeling. Parts of my body felt liquid—merely because he touched my cheek? I’d lost my mind. Perhaps I could blame Burnsby. He had knocked me off a ladylike pedestal and proven himself to be a villain.
And now—
“I am not an adulterous woman,” I said, putting my thoughts into words.
His breath caught, and he said, “No, you are not.”
In the flickering light of the oil lamp, I read his eyes better than I had in the brightly lit library. Godric meant it. Yet he shared the feverish heat that had swamped my body.
I jumped up, but my feet tangled with my gown, and I pitched forward. Godric caught me as I was about to slam face-first into the brick wall opposite the bench. He instantly let go—but now I knew what it felt like when his hands wrapped around my waist.
“I suspect you would like some tea?” he asked, his tone that of a courteous gentleman.
“Oh, God, yes,” I gasped, in a most unladylike fashion.
“Burnsby should be long gone. Sophonisba was waiting for him in the music room. Still, I suggest we follow the passage to the kitchen,” he said, taking the lantern down from the wall.
For a moment, I didn’t remember who Sophonisba was. When I did, I noticed that the tinge of humiliation I had been feeling at the sound of her name had eased. Burnsby was a dreadful man, and she’d spent thirty, even forty years with him. That was its own punishment.
Godric began leading the way down the corridor. My heart beat in time with his footsteps. All I could think about was his hands on my waist. I touched my cheek, and it was as if I could still feel his fingers there, reassuring and somehow comfortingly familiar.
“Was she eavesdropping during our argument?” I asked, summoning up composure.
“No, Sophonisba appeared to be preparing a song list when I last saw her,” he replied, obviously having no idea what I’d been thinking about. “Did you really ask her—them—to put on a concert?”
“It will give her something to do,” I explained. “Perhaps she was forced to stay with Burnsby for financial reasons, Godric. He didn’t buy her a house, and likely he didn’t give her pin money. He can be very cheap. She has remained with him through three wives. Three.”
Godric had stopped and was gazing at me as if I’d surprised him—and as if everything that I said mattered. “Few women would contemplate Ainsworth’s predicament, let alone give her a role to play on Christmas Day.”
I shrugged, reluctant to interpret the tenderness in his voice. We had to return to talking in a normal manner, despite my feeling that everything between us had changed with his touch.
I was married.
Even if my mind had gone to absurd places, a respectable solicitor with a prominent role in the government could never marry a divorcée.
“Sophonisba’s life cannot be pleasant, living so isolated in the mountains,” I said, pushing away that thought. “The servants don’t respect her. Mima strongly dislikes her, have you noticed?”
He turned his head. “I have.”
“You should smile more often,” I said, the words tumbling from my lips. “Perhaps that’s why you don’t have a wife. Women may have been afraid that they’d be unable to make you happy.”
“The right woman will easily make me happy,” Godric stated, with complete assurance.
I had believed him ill-tempered at our first meeting, but he wasn’t at all. My heart winced at the image of Godric smiling down at a wife he adored. A wife who wasn’t me.
The corridor ended in a brick wall. He patted a protruding brick.
“When I push this in, a door will open into the pantry.” But instead of doing so, he hung the lantern on yet another hook and turned to me.
“You told Ophelia that eavesdropping gave you insight into my character and discernment.” He caught my hands in his.
I felt myself turn pink. “I was cross.”
“I already knew you to be intelligent and extraordinarily beautiful. Now I know you are courageous and protective of your sister.”
My cheeks—and my eyes—started to burn. No one had ever said anything like that to me. “Thank you,” I said, trying not to appear flustered, and failing.
“Mind you, marrying Burnsby was a step too far, even for the sake of loyalty.”
“It was my decision,” I said, studying the way his hands engulfed mine.
“You had good reasons.” He raised up my hands to his face and kissed first one, then the other.
My hands burned where he kissed them. My brain did not seem to be functioning correctly; I couldn’t form words or sounds, let alone a coherent response. All I could think was, He just kissed my hands, over and over, each time a different word underlined in my mind’s eye.
“The dowry will allow your sister to choose a spouse,” Godric said, dropping my hands, wrapping his arms around me, and drawing me close.
(Yikes!)
“This is most improper,” I mumbled. He smelled like chilly air and lemon soap. My cheeks heated as I resisted the impulse to melt against his chest. “You were right in your initial judgment. I was a fool to marry Burnsby, because I didn’t understand who he was.”
His grave, beautiful eyes met mine. “You deserve a better husband, a man who would care about your happiness.”
Given my lack of dowry, I had never allowed myself to imagine such a marriage. Perhaps I didn’t consider myself deserving of such a husband. I didn’t realize I had begun crying until he handed me a handkerchief.
I also didn’t know how warm a hug could be until he closed his arms even tighter. I put my cheek against Godric’s chest and listened to his heartbeat while I tried to stop the tears rolling down my face.
After a while, he put his chin on my head and rocked back and forth, the smallest amount.
Just enough to make me feel as if the earth was moving beneath us.
When I finally stopped crying and wiped my eyes, Godric opened the door into the pantry. The first thing I heard was a loud—and satisfied—oink.
“Lady Burnsby!” the kitchen boy, Archie, squealed.
Peony was standing before the door. When I picked her up, she snuffled my cheeks as if she could kiss away the tearstains.
“She kept sniffing at the wall,” Archie explained. “Miss Wellington was afeared that rats were nesting in the passage, so we didn’t open the door.”
Godric laughed. “We’ve been chatting on the other side of that wall for a good ten, fifteen minutes.”
“She smelled me,” I said, giggling as I kissed Peony’s intelligent, adoring face. I glanced at Godric’s face, and laughter died in my throat.
“Jasmine soap,” he said. “Silk, a hint of starch, a touch of Genevieve.”
He could smell me, too.
I blinked at him, torn between embarrassment and delight.
Godric leaned closer. “Of those four things, guess which one your piglet finds addictive?”
Whenever I picked up Peony, she acted as if I had been gone for a month. Her snub nose was turned against the side of my breast, long eyelashes curling on her cheeks as she breathed me in.
A touch of Genevieve.
“Addictive,” Godric repeated softly.