Chapter Twenty-Three #3
The pleasure rose quickly, tightening through her until every muscle drew taut. Gabriel’s rhythm faltered as she clenched around him, and the last of his control broke with hers.
Poppy cried out into his shoulder as release swept through her.
Gabriel thrust once more, then drew free abruptly and spilled against her thigh with a low groan, his face pressed into the curve of her neck.
For several moments, neither of them moved.
Poppy lay breathless and dazed, more content than she had known a person could feel while the practical structure of her life remained on the verge of collapse.
Gabriel lifted his head. Concern entered his face. “Did I hurt you?”
“A little.”
His mouth tightened.
“Not enough to make that expression,” she said.
“What expression?”
“The one suggesting you intend to prosecute yourself.”
He let out a breath that might have become a laugh under less serious circumstances. “I should have been gentler.”
“You were gentle.”
“I lost control.”
Poppy touched the hair fallen across his forehead. “I liked it.”
Gabriel smiled then, a happy smile, and Poppy felt it as keenly as any kiss.
He shifted carefully, reached for the linen cloth on her washstand, and tended to her with quiet consideration. The intimacy of the gesture made her chest ache more than she expected.
Then he drew the coverlet over them and gathered her against him.
Poppy rested her cheek upon his chest.
His arm curved around her waist. His other hand moved lightly through her loosened hair, untangling one curl from another with the same patient attention he gave everything that mattered to him.
Downstairs, a door closed. Farther away, Freddie barked once, lodging an official objection to his exclusion.
Poppy smiled against Gabriel’s skin. “He knows.”
“Freddie suspects everyone of conspiring against him.”
“Frequently with cause.”
Silence settled over them, intimate now rather than uncertain. Gabriel pressed a kiss to her hair.
“Poppy.”
“Yes?”
“We should marry.”
She went still against him.
Joy rose first, swift and bright. She wanted him. She wanted mornings beside him, Freddie stealing his gloves, Mama scandalizing him over breakfast, and every orderly corner of his life made warmer by theirs.
But she had not missed the word he had chosen.
Should.
Poppy lifted her head. “That is a very Gabriel Ashby proposal.”
His hand stilled against her back. “It is a proposal.”
She tilted her chin to look at him. “Why should we marry?”
His expression tightened. “Because I have compromised you.”
“You have taken nothing I did not freely give.”
“That does not release me from my duty.”
Her happiness dimmed. “No. It merely proves you still do not understand.”
“Poppy—”
“You have told me you want me. You have chosen me. Yet the moment you speak of marriage, you return to duty, protection, and what you owe me.”
“I do owe you protection.”
“I do not want to be another debt you spend your life repaying.”
He stared at her.
Poppy drew the sheet more closely around herself, though no covering could have made her feel less exposed. “You believe marrying you would cost me my place in Society, my friends, and the life I have known. You fear I shall wake one morning and discover I have surrendered too much.”
He searched her face. “Would that fear be unreasonable?”
“It would be unreasonable to decide it for me.”
His jaw hardened. “I would never wish you to regret choosing me.”
“Then trust that I know what I am choosing.”
“I do trust you.”
“Not in this.” She reached for his hand. “You still think love has made me careless. If I accept tonight, you will spend our marriage waiting for me to discover my mistake. Every difficulty will become proof that you took too much from me. Every sacrifice will become another sum you must repay.”
His fingers tightened around hers.
“I love you,” she said. “But I cannot accept your offer.”
The pain in his face nearly broke her resolve.
“Because I spoke of duty?”
“Because you still believe my happiness is yours to calculate.” She lifted his hand and pressed it to her heart. “You fear I shall regret choosing you, so you have decided the choice cannot safely be mine.”
His fingers tightened against hers. “I would never wish you to surrender your whole life for me.”
“And I would never wish to spend our marriage proving that I had not.”
He stared at her.
Poppy drew a careful breath. “If I accepted tonight, every difficulty would become evidence that you had taken too much from me. Every sacrifice would become another debt you believed you must repay.”
He shook his head. “That is not what I want.”
“No,” she said softly. “But it is what you fear. I am tired of waiting for gentlemen to decide my future. If I must, I shall take Mama and Freddie to the country and make a life there without you or Lord Caldermere.”
Silence settled between them.
At last, Gabriel lowered his gaze to their joined hands. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “I do not know how to love you without fearing what it will cost you.”
Poppy’s throat tightened.
“And I do not know how to marry a man who cannot believe I would choose the cost.”