Chapter Thirty-Three
Tha?s tried not to let Alastair—Lord Eden—see that she felt like he’d slapped her.
After all, she was foolish to be stung by his words. The quip he’d made had been exactly like one she’d have made herself.
But she could tell that despite her laughter, he saw through her.
His eyes were liquid, tortured. He kept trying to touch her, to soothe her.
It was humiliating.
Why had she said that?
Why would she think a man like him, who prized respectability and perfection, would even joke about marrying a woman who slept with men for money? Hundreds of men, decades’ and tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of them.
She believed that there might be a man out there who would marry her. But he would not be a man like Lord Alastair Eden. And she’d been a foolish hussy to forget it.
She was usually blunt to herself about how she was seen in the world. The way people looked at her, and always would, for how she made her living.
Alastair was one of those people.
And she’d been mad to forget it, even for a moment, even in jest.
What was wrong with her?
All day, she’d taken pains to remind herself that last night wasn’t real. She’d thrown herself into sex with so much false exuberance she had almost collapsed, just to remind herself why she was here. Why they both were.
To fuck.
That was it.
Not to whisper secrets in the dark.
Not to fall in bloody love.
She was so ashamed she wanted to hide in the privy. Maybe then he’d stop looking at her like she was a child he’d kicked. He was still fervently apologizing, which only made her more embarrassed. She had to make him stop before she cried.
“By God, enough,” she moaned, a smile plastered on her face. “Don’t squawk yourself into a lather, milord. You’ll bring back my fever.”
He stopped talking. Instead, he pulled her close to him, holding her tenderly, and looked her in the eye.
“Please accept my apology.”
“Of course I don’t accept, when none is needed.”
To end the torment, she grabbed his hands and squeezed them to her breasts and wiggled her hips to get closer to his groin.
He reared away from her like a horse startled by a crack of lightning.
“Please don’t. That’s not what I want right now,” he said. “And I don’t think it’s what you want either.”
It wasn’t. What she wanted was to leave this place and promptly begin forgetting it.
Forgetting him.
“What I want is to give you what you paid for,” she said.
“Well, you’ve given me that handsomely all day,” he replied darkly. “You’re becoming an incredible value.”
“That’s what she likes to hear.”
“I’m going to sleep in my own bed,” he said. “I’m tired. And you should get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”
They’d slept together every night for weeks, even during her illness, but she didn’t argue. She’d just as soon be alone with her scalded feelings and her blushing heart.
She wished her friends were here. She’d have loved to moan to Cornelia and Seraphina about how he’d said such hurtful words, and how her own reaction had made the whole thing worse.
How she’d ruined a lovely month.
But then again, maybe it was better they weren’t here to complain to.
They’d no doubt have told her Eden was a prig, or mean-spirited, and written him off for dead.
But they’d be wrong about him.
She knew deep in her bones that he felt worse than she did. That if he’d not been so annoyed with her peevish ways he’d never have tossed off words so thoughtlessly. That he’d probably never forgive himself for the lapse, being as focused as he was on being the best at everything he tried, including charming whores.
But that didn’t mean his words had not been true. The most honest things were often said when you weren’t thinking.
“Stupid girl,” she whispered to herself, wiping away the tears that had begun to fall the moment he’d turned his back.
She cried herself to sleep.
She felt sick again when she woke up in the morning. Sick with fever, sick with dread at facing Eden.
When she didn’t come down for tea, he knocked and entered with a tray for her. “How are you?” he asked, his face drawn with concern.
“I might have worn myself out yesterday,” she admitted.
“I imagine so. You feel ill?”
“Tired, mostly.”
The painfulness of their conversation the night before made every word hang heavy in the air.
“Stay in bed,” he said. “Rest. I’ll check on you when Hattie leaves.”
She was too defeated to object. She fell back asleep, as much to escape the day as out of fatigue.
When she awoke it was almost evening.
She must still be sicker than she’d thought.
She went downstairs to find Eden. He was in the kitchen, covered in flour up to his elbows. There was a streak of white slashed across his cheekbone.
She wanted to reach out and brush it away, as she’d done so many times before. But she couldn’t touch him. Not even chastely.
She didn’t know how she’d stand to sleep with him again.
“What are you making?” she asked.
“A lamb pie for our supper.” He gave her a tentative smile. “I thought you might recover your appetite if I made you your favorite.”
It was her favorite. He was stewing the lamb with a savory combination of carrots and tomatoes and onions and herbs that filled the kitchen with the aroma of comfort itself.
“I’m sorry I slept the day away,” she said.
“Sleep all you want, Tha?s. My lessons have concluded.”
As much as she was relieved to be spared the pain of touching him, she didn’t want to fail at what she’d come for.
“Your math is wrong,” she said. “We still have tonight and tomorrow. You hired me for a month.”
“I hired you to teach me how to please a woman. And you have. I feel confident as a lover. You’ve more than fulfilled your obligation.”
He said this to the pie crust he was rolling out rather than to her.
He didn’t want to be with her again, it was clear.
And the knowledge it was over—that the final time had passed, and she hadn’t even known to cherish the last moments—made tears sting her eyes.
She was glad he wasn’t looking at her.
“Your loss,” she said with cheer she didn’t feel. She felt like learning the bagpipes so she could play a mournful bloody dirge, loud and jangled and off-key. Give the cocks a taste of their own medicine.
She left the room and lost at patience for an hour until he came into the parlor with two steaming plates.
They ate in silence. Though the meal was probably scrumptious, it tasted sour in her mouth. She could barely swallow.
Out of duty, she asked Eden one last time if he was certain he’d not join her in her bed.
He shook his head. “Thank you,” he said politely. “But I’ll leave you to your rest.”
Her bloody rest. Dog’s blood, but she was sick of him talking about her rest. She’d had enough rest this past week to raise the dead. She wasn’t some flimsy violet he had to keep from wilting.
But fine. He’d relieved her of her duty, and she’d drop the matter.
If there was one thing a whore must know, it was that your patron had no obligation to you. You were there at his convenience. And she was no longer convenient for Lord Eden.
She went to bed, and when she woke up with the roosters she immediately knocked on Eden’s door.
“Yes?” he called.
She walked in and found him in his nightshirt, still in bed. She fought the urge to dive in beneath the sheets with him. She missed his morning warmth.
“Seeing if you’re still abed,” she said. “When you’re up, I’ll pack my trunks.”
“Wait until Hattie leaves,” he said. “I’ll help you.”
“Fine.”
She whiled away the morning chatting to Hattie about her supposed return to her genteel charges, and gathering all her brochures and notes from the places she’d left them strewn about the house. The concerns of the Institute felt like a lifetime away after a month in the countryside. She took comfort in the fact that soon she’d be back in London, back to her friends, back to having a purpose in life aside from Alastair Eden.
When Hattie left she went upstairs to pack. She was tearing her clothes out of the wardrobe and the bureaus and piling them on the bed when Eden entered and winced.
“You’ll make a mess of your nice things,” he said.
“My things aren’t so nice.”
“Of course they are. Don’t be impatient. There’s not that much to pack. Here.” He took a chemise and carefully folded it, then repeated it with another and another until he had a tidy stack.
“See?” he said. “They’ll fit better in your trunks.”
“I’ll add valeting to your list of services.”
“I hope you’ll provide a reference.”
“Perfect man,” she said.
“Not perfect. But a better one, thanks to you.”
She grunted.
“I’m very grateful to you, Tha?s,” he said. “For everything you’ve taught me. I consider this a great success.”
“Glad you got your money’s worth.”
“Stop saying that. I’m being sincere.”
“So am I. You paid a fortune.”
He sighed and continued to fold in silence, handing her garments to place inside the trunks.
“The carriage will arrive first thing in the morning to retrieve you,” he said when they were done.
Good. It couldn’t come soon enough. She wished it were here right now.
She shut herself in her room for the afternoon, to avoid the awkwardness of bumbling around the house with a man who didn’t want her there. A kind man who no longer had a use for her.
She kept fighting the urge to cry. She knew she was about to get her monthly and blamed it for her infernal weepiness.
They ate leftover pie for supper, and this time Tha?s did not offer to take Eden to bed a final time.
Even a whore didn’t like to be rejected.
Even a whore no better than a sheep had her pride.
She slept fitfully and woke to a smear of blood between her legs.
A fitting way to end the month.
When Eden took her in his arms in the doorway after the carriage was loaded, she allowed him a polite kiss on the cheek but did not return it.
And she cried, hunched and aching in her womb, the entire journey back to London.