Chapter Thirty-Two
Eden walked along the lane as the sun rose, taking in fresh air while Tha?s slept.
He had not slept at all.
Not since she’d wept in his arms.
He’d begged her to open up and be her freest self with him. To let him truly pleasure her. And she had. But it had not been in an operatic display of erotic theater.
It had begun in whispered secrets and grown into an urgent need to be connected with each other. Crested in two desperate bodies joined together, bringing comfort and acceptance in the dark. He’d thought it wonderful that she’d truly let him see her, shown him exactly what was under her pose as a brazen lady of the night. He’d felt his heart expanding.
That is, until he realized it had made her sad.
Made her cry, in great, racking sobs.
Had he been wrong to ask her questions? To pry into who she was behind what he had begun to understand was a mask of flippant humor? To wish to understand her—and maybe even to succeed?
He turned back to the cottage. He should check on her.
Perhaps she would let him touch her tenderly again. Assuage his worry that she regretted how much she’d revealed.
He went into her room without knocking, as he’d been doing for days while he had nursed her, and found her sitting at her dressing table plaiting her hair. Her color was not high, but she was no longer deathly wan, and her eyes were clear from the haze of fever.
“Well, look at you,” he said, smiling.
“Feast your eyes, milord.”
Milord.An odd thing for her to call him in the light of day, after she’d whispered his given name all night.
He bent down and kissed her on the crown of her head. “You look like you’re feeling better.”
She ducked off his kiss. “I am. I want a solid meal for once, and you best have one too. Now that I’ve got my vim, it’s time to put you to your paces.”
“My paces?”
“Three days left to practice,” she said, winking at him in the mirror. “Then you’re off to set the ton on fire with your cock.”
He had to fight to keep from frowning. After what they’d shared last night, this talk seemed coarse and insincere.
“You rest, and I’ll bring you breakfast on a tray,” he said. “No need to tire yourself.”
“Eating at a table isn’t likely to kill me after what I’ve been through. And I want to see Hattie. Nice to set eyes on another soul after being trapped with you.”
She said it playfully, but he wasn’t feeling playful. Her mood was too sharp, unnatural.
She was pretending. He was sure of it.
It had to be about last night.
She did regret the intimacy they’d shared.
And as much as it crushed him, perhaps she was right to.
Perhaps it had been wrong of him to allow himself to tease out her secrets and make love to her when she was ill and vulnerable. Perhaps he was no better than the other men who’d used her.
And if he were, he’d have to find a way to make it up to her.
But right now, he wouldn’t press her on the point. If she wanted a morning to herself, he would grant her one. God knew he had enough correspondence to catch up on to keep him occupied for days.
“Yes, it will be nice for you to move about the house, I’m sure,” he said. “Let’s go downstairs. I think I hear Hattie at the gate.”
He made a pot of tea while Hattie clucked about Tha?s, then left them in the kitchen. He set about sorting through his towering stack of letters, arranging them in separate piles—estate matters, a note to Tha?s from Elinor, and a few new reports on potential brides.
The reports filled him with dread. He didn’t want to read about the young women he’d begin to court in a few weeks’ time.
So he read about sheep.
For hours.
Until his mind was numb.
The sound of the women’s conversation faded, and Tha?s came ambling through the door.
“Time for lessons,” she said merrily.
He did not believe her jauntiness. Not after last night.
He looked up, wary.
“Aren’t you tired? You’re still recovering. You should have a nap.”
“I feel right as rain.”
Hedid not. He felt confused and wobbly.
He held up the letter from Elinor, addressed to Miss Smith. “This came for you.”
“Read it to the dullard.”
He winced at her. “You’re not a dullard. You’re one of the quickest people I’ve ever met.”
“Not quick with me letters.”
“I don’t like it when you denigrate yourself.”
“Well, only a few days left to tolerate it. Will you read it or not?”
He slashed open the letter with his knife and unfolded the paper. It was short.
“My darling,” he read aloud, “I write with good news. Without going into detail, I found the boy. There was no way to visit him, but I know from a trusted person that he’s safe, and that’s a comfort. I’m so grateful to you for helping me see my two lost loves.”
He glanced down at the next line and his cheeks went hot. He cleared his throat.
“Is that it?” Tha?s asked.
“Erm, no. She goes on, I hope you are enjoying your last days with X. It was such a pleasure to see the two of you together and the friendship you have built. Be kind to him. He cares for you.”
He glanced at her. She was looking at her hands.
“I’m making my way back to London on the mail coach tomorrow,” he finished reading. “Call on mewhen you return.
“All my—” he cleared his throat again “—All my, erm, love.”
He stared at Tha?s, wondering if those words—all my love—jarred her the way they did him.
Wondering if she knew the sentiment was true.
He did love her. He could deny it to himself as he’d done last night, but he knew in his bones what she was to him.
She lifted her gaze back up.
“Thanks,” she said brightly. “Now, I was thinking we should get you fucking standing up.”
Something was seriously amiss here.
“Are you well?”
“Right as rain.”
“I’d rather not tire you with acrobatics just now. You were quite... faint... last night.”
He searched her eyes, pleading with her to acknowledge all they’d shared.
But she just shrugged. “Nothing like a little sleep. Come. Time for a screw.”
He wanted to be more direct. To say, I know I’m more to you than a randy student, and you know you’re more to me than a one-night patron.
But there was no trace of the woman who’d wept in his arms the night before. She was every inch the Tha?s Magdalene who’d arrived here nearly a month before, when she’d been expecting Camberwell.
He brushed his hair into his eyes, trying not to show how hurt he felt by this.
“Let me just finish up here, and then perhaps—”
“Oooh,” she interrupted him, pointing at his stack of reports on other women. “Are those more of your ladies?”
He nodded.
She clapped her hands excitedly. “Let’s read them.”
“My eyes are tired,” he said. “Maybe later.”
All he needed was for Tha?s to finally find a gem. Someone to her liking, to whom she could jauntily marry him off in a morning’s work.
“Well then, there’s something else we can do behind that desk.”
He once again recalled the first day she’d come here. When she’d offered to pleasure him under it. His utter shock and horror. He’d grown accustomed to her taking him in his mouth—he enjoyed it immensely—but the act seemed off after what they’d shared the night before.
“I’d rather take you to bed,” he said softly. “Like last night.”
She made absolutely no sign she knew what he was talking about.
“No use repeating old tricks when there’s new ones to learn,” she said, without acknowledging the emotion in his voice.
And that was as far as he would go. He’d taken too much from her, and she regretted granting it. We are not lovers, she was telling him. I am your whore.
He was delusional to think she’d ever think of him as more. And unfair to sow such feelings, when they’d so soon have to say farewell forever.
So he did exactly as she asked for the rest of the day.
And she asked a lot of him.
She went through his erotic books and made him test out positions they had not yet tried. Her riding backward on his lap, standing propped up against a wall, lying on a table with her feet resting on his shoulders. He knew she was faking her pleasure, and while he could not stop himself from spending—he desired her too much—it was joyless. He felt like a sexual performing monkey ordered about by an organ-grinder, pretending to have a merry time.
By late afternoon he was exhausted, and she looked so peaked it would have been a crime to join with her again, no matter what she asked of him.
“That’s enough for the day,” he said wearily. “I’ll make you supper. Please, take a nap. I’m worried you’ll grow ill again.”
He could tell he was right because she didn’t argue. She went upstairs slowly, like she was sore. And how could she not be after what his much larger body had just put her through?
He prepared a chicken soup. Heartier than the broth he’d been giving her, but still nourishing and gentle on the stomach. When it was done, he called her name. He didn’t hear her footsteps, so he went upstairs to check on her.
She was in bed, eyes closed.
He sat down beside her and touched her shoulder.
Her eyes fluttered open. “Sorry,” she said. “I fell asleep.”
“Good. That was the idea. Do you feel up to eating?”
“Maybe just a bit.”
“I’ll bring you something. Stay in bed.”
“No, no,” she objected, dragging herself up. “Better for me to be on my feet so I sleep through the night.”
She followed him downstairs, and he brought two bowls and a loaf of bread to the table in the parlor. She sank down into her chair and closed her eyes, breathing in the steam.
“Smells delicious,” she said.
She barely ate, however, slurping at the broth and picking bits of bread from inside the crust.
“You don’t like it?” he asked.
“It’s good. But I’m not hungry.”
“Perhaps you should go back to bed.”
“You should come with me,” she said. “Get in a bit more practice.”
Even looking pale and clammy, she would not give up this charade. It was beginning to try his patience.
“I’ve had quite enough practice for one day,” he said. “And so have you. I’ll clean this up. You get some sleep.”
She shook her head. “I’m not ready for bed, I swear.”
“Then play patience.”
“Why don’t you read to me?”
Finally, a reasonable suggestion. “My pleasure,” he said. “What would you like to hear? Perhaps some poetry? I have a new volume by—”
“Read to me about your girls.”
He sighed. It was like she wanted to twist the knife. Insist in every way she could that he meant nothing to her. “Is that really what you want?” he asked.
“I want to be useful to you after days of rotting in bed, wasting your money.”
“You know I don’t care about the money.”
“Well, I do. Besides, I like hearing about the innocent little things. Always did like stories about princesses.”
“Fine,” he said. “But get back in bed. I’ll come join you.”
He retrieved the final batch of letters from his study. When he went upstairs Tha?s was propped up in bed.
“Oh good,” she said. “I was about to come and find you.”
He held up the papers. “Just gathering the entertainment you requested.”
He moved to sit down in the chair across from the bed, but she patted the sheets beside her. “Come sit with me.”
She probably intended to take liberties he had every intention of resisting, but he was too tired to argue. He perched on the bed and broke the seal on the first letter.
“Miss Amelia Landslough,” he began. “Seventeen years old—”
“Far too young,” Tha?s said. “Next.”
He agreed. There was no point in reading on.
He unsealed another missive. “Lady Honor Hastings.”
“Lady Honor. How dignified.”
“Lady Honor, twenty-one years old,” he read on, “is the second-eldest daughter of Lord Lyle Hastings.”
“Seasoned enough,” Tha?s allowed.
“She is blonde, and at four feet eleven, considered quite dainty.”
Tha?s sighed, took the letter from his hands, and tossed it onto the floor. “Well, she won’t do, will she?”
He could not see why not. She sounded unobjectionable.
“What could possibly be the problem?”
“She’s much too short for you.”
He was growing so, so tired of this.
“What does her height matter?”
“How will you talk to her? She won’t be able to hear you.”
“I can speak up.”
“Speak down, you mean. Toward her ears.”
“You are being ridiculous. What is the purpose of me reading these to you if you object to every girl on the smallest grounds?”
“The only thing small is Lady Honor. You like walking, but she’ll have a tiny stride. You like riding, but she’ll only be able to mount a little pony.”
“Pure speculation. You’re rejecting these women just to irritate me.”
“Do you want my feminine wisdom or not?”
“I’m beginning to think not.”
“Oh, don’t be cross. Read me another.”
He agreed only because this was the final letter of the batch.
“Miss Edwina Lawrence,” he said. “Twenty-four years old, eldest daughter of Mr. William Lawrence of Blyth, in Northumberland.”
Tha?s nodded for him to go on.
“Considered a striking beauty, Miss Lawrence has raven hair, blue eyes, a slim physique, and is of medium height.”
“No,” Tha?s said immediately. “She’s not the right look.”
He gritted his teeth. “I’ve told you, looks are of minimal importance.”
“You’re dead wrong. You feast with your eyes more than most.”
“What does that mean?”
“Looking upon a woman—the right kind of woman—makes you randy.”
“You make me sound like a lech. Is that what you think of me?”
“You’re a gentleman through and through. But one who likes hips, breasts, and an arse.”
This was utterly exasperating. He tossed the letter aside.
“This is the last of forty girls I’ve told you about, and you’ve ruled out every one of them. For all you know, this woman could be perfect.”
She snorted. “I keep telling you, there’s no such thing as perfect. You’re a fool to think there is. There’s only perfect for you.”
“Well then, who exactly do you think I’m supposed to marry?” he snapped. “How am I possibly supposed to find her, in your infinite wisdom?”
“She probably doesn’t exist,” she said in a singsong voice. “I guess you better just marry me.”
“Can you be serious, for once, Tha?s?”he said, pounding the mattress with all the frustration and disappointment this day had built up in him. “I could sooner marry one of my sheep.”
She gasped so sharply his neck cracked as he looked over at her.
Her face was contorted, like he’d lashed her.
He froze. The contents of his stomach churned.
Oh God, he’d said that. Aloud. To her.
And after what she’d confided to him last night, about her desire to be a wife and mother.
It was cruel.
He took her by the shoulders urgently. “Tha?s,” he said, “that came out wrong. So bloody wrong. I meant only that the ton would never accept such a thing. You would make a fine—”
“A fine sheep, eh?” she interrupted him, with a forced chuckle. “Better than a pig, I suppose.”
He had never felt more nauseated.
“I’m so—so sorry,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean it that way. Not that I perceive you, or a match between us, in such a fashion, only that—”
“Alastair,” she said, “it was a joke.”
But even if it had been meant as such, the way he’d replied to it was unspeakable.
And worse, now that he’d made such a terrible error, he had the most arresting thought. What would it be like if he did marry her? If he could be that man she longed for, who chose her and only her, who gave her babies and a home and—
Stop, he commanded himself.
He couldn’t.
If his mad parents had taught him anything, it was that a respectable alliance was the bedrock of stability. He could not allow his most intimate relationship to cause chaos in his life. He did not want a homelife like the one he had grown up in.
He wanted an existence he could control to the point of absolute perfection.
And marrying a person like Tha?s—a woman whose reputation alone would thrust his life into a turbulent storm, let alone her mannerisms and passionate personality—was out of the question.
But he’d never felt as terrible as he did right now, realizing he’d killed the tenderness between them.
The loss of it provoked a sadness unlike anything he’d ever felt.