Chapter Seventeen
Later came around torturously slowly. After her confession that Marlbury—the same Marlbury whom Oliver had spent any number of drunken hours with—had been the one to ruin Emily’s hopes and dreams—he found himself unable to sit still.
While she helped inside the house, he rubbed down the horses with his good hand, ignoring the ache in the other.
No wonder she had responded so badly to Oliver’s declaration that he wouldn’t marry Isabella.
If only she could see her sister for who she was—a conniving, selfish girl who was far more invested in looking out for herself than for protecting Emily.
Not once had Isabella asked Oliver to take Emily with them once they were married.
He had presumed they would, but that had never been a condition of their marriage.
All she had daydreamed about was visiting London and keeping a carriage and all the new gowns and shoes she would buy.
If he had insisted on Emily staying in that empty old house on her own, he had a sneaking feeling Isabella would agree.
Perhaps with the intention of sending Emily some of her pin money—but he knew that such resolutions would have fallen by the wayside quickly enough.
And that was the kind of wife he had been happy to accept.
What folly.
After dinner, Oliver endured several hours in the drawing room until Mrs Chambers finally sent Emily to bed, and he followed on her heels.
Later had arrived.
He wanted to miss none of it.
Only when he closed the door behind them did she turn to look at him, sinking onto the bed and bracing herself against her hands. He meant to ease into the subject slowly, gently, to reassure her that he would not judge no matter what had happened between them.
Instead, he said, “Did he force you into bedding him?”
She blinked, clearly flummoxed, then shook her head, a slight smile springing to her lips. “Ah, so you know I lay with him, then.”
“I suspected.” He had for a while now. “So he promised you marriage in exchange for that? And then abandoned you?” He paced about the room, trying and failing to shelve his anger. This was no place for it, but he despised any man who took advantage of a woman in such a way.
With Isabella, he had offered her marriage, but he had said nothing of love, and he had not taken her innocence.
“Do you think less of me for it?” she asked, watching him.
He stopped. “No, not in the slightest.”
“Even though I am a woman who has been compromised?”
His laugh was short and harsh. “Then I suppose so have I. Do you think less of me for it?”
“No.” A frown touched her brow. “Although I would have done if you’d seduced my sister.”
“I suspect it would be more that she would have seduced me,” he said dryly. “But fear not—her virtue is safe.”
Emily nodded slowly, looking down at her fingers, splayed on her lap.
“Marlbury didn’t get me with child, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she said.
“We weren’t careful—back then, I didn’t understand the need to be, and I hardly thought it mattered, seeing as I believed we would be married.
After he left, I worried I might be, but . . .”
But her bleeds had come.
“When I knew I wasn’t, I cried for three days,” she said, her voice matter-of-fact. Oliver ached for her. “But in time, especially after Mother’s death, I was relieved. I didn’t have the time for ruination.”
“God, Em,” he murmured.
“I don’t need your pity.” She met his gaze, her expression unyielding. “I made a mistake and I believed him, but those days are over.”
In other words, she had no intention of giving herself to anyone else.
Not marrying, he could understand, in a way—if she feared falling in love, she wouldn’t want to expose herself to something that could so risk that aim.
And although he had seen some excellent examples of happy marriages with his siblings, his parents stood as proof that not all unions were felicitous.
But he did think it sad that she would never open herself to physical affection. The way she had kissed him—she had hungered for it. That had not been the kiss of someone who disliked such things.
“All right,” he said, and came to sit beside her on the bed. “I don’t pity you. But you are limiting yourself, darling.”
She raised a brow, and he wanted to laugh at the sudden chill in her expression. “Are you suggesting you think marriage the only course of action open to me?”
“You misunderstand me entirely.” He possessed himself of her hand and kissed the back of it.
“You may remain a maid for the rest of your days if you so choose. What I am saying is that you should not let Marlbury deny you future joy.” He turned her hand over and kissed her palm, waiting to see if she would push him away. “Future pleasure.”
Her fingers clenched, but she didn’t pull away. “What are you saying?”
“Well, we have already established your sister doesn’t love me and I don’t love her, and we will not be marrying.” He turned his attention to her other hand, and she allowed him. “I enjoyed kissing you, and I rather suspect you enjoyed kissing me. So, I have a proposition for you.”
“You would like to ruin me?” she asked, the wry note in her voice not quite disguising its breathiness.
“Fie, how ungenerous.” He laughed against the tips of her fingers, then drew them gently into his mouth, sucking them deeper. “I’m asking for another kiss, Emily. Just one.” He looked up at her. “What do you say?”
The problem was, Emily wanted very much to say yes.
The sensible part of her brain warned her that such things were dangerous—she knew better than to give herself to a man, even one such as Oliver.
But she had spent seven years being nothing but sensible, denying herself everything she could ever want.
For seven years, she had been drowning, everything good sinking to the depths of the ocean.
When Lord Marlbury had left her, she’d thought he’d taken her desire with him.
All that had been left was dust and her broken heart.
This man had reassembled those broken pieces. Finally, for the first time in years, she felt like flesh and blood again.
What was the harm in giving in? Allowing herself one bright moment before she returned to the drudgery of her life? If she refused him, he wouldn’t go home and marry Isabella; all she would be doing was denying herself.
She had been so tired, so cold, for so long.
“A kiss?” she asked.
“Nothing more.”
“A kiss always leads to something more.”
His eyes sparked, and she knew he wanted to. But all he said was, “Only if you choose it to.”
This didn’t have to change anything. There could be intimacy without affection. After all, Mercy Briggins had been known to take the blacksmith’s son here and there to mutual satisfaction until she’d married, and neither had seemed to pine after the other.
If Mercy could do it, why could she not?
“I would never hurt you the way Marlbury did,” Oliver said. “And I mean that whether you allow me to kiss you or cast me from your sight.” At the twitch of her lips, his own smile broke free. “Which would look odd, but I assure you, it’s not unheard of between married couples.”
“I could hardly send you away here.”
“There’s a perfectly serviceable sofa downstairs. I assure you, I’ve slept on worse.”
“With a broken arm?”
“It barely hurts any more. I’d be perfectly comfortable.”
“Are you trying to convince me to send you away?”
“Of course I’d rather stay.” His grin turned lopsided and charming. “I would rather kiss you right here on this very comfortable bed, but I’ll settle for sleeping elsewhere if that’s what you’d prefer.”
“You,” she said as severely as she could, “are a terrible flirt.”
“And here I thought I was rather good at it.”
She gave in and laughed, one hand covering her face. How he achieved this, she didn’t know; how could he make her laugh with such ease? When so much of her life had felt like darkness, he came along with the light.
His smile faded as she looked back at him, and her stomach tumbled at the expression in his eyes. Deep, dark, the colour of midnight.
“What do you want, Emily?” he asked, and heaven help her, she was tempted. There was nothing but the light of a candle between them, no one to witness them but God himself, and she suspected He had already forsaken her.
Could she be selfish?
She was beginning to think she could. Just for today.
As though sensing her amenability to the proposal, he brought his thumb to her mouth once again, the rough pad scraping across her bottom lip. It oughtn’t to have been so appealing, and yet she was instantly burning, too hot even in the cool of the room.
“I won’t do anything until you tell me I can,” he said. “You have the control.”
Victor Marlbury, the man who had broken her heart and taken her virtue, had never asked for her permission in this way. He had taken her capitulation as consent, and she had thought that was love, that overbearing need.
But she saw the same need in Oliver even as he waited for her response.
How could she have denied him?
The control was in her hands, and she would take the reins.
“You can have your kiss, and more,” she said, her heart pounding with the thrill of finally giving in to the inevitable. This was objectively a terrible decision, but it was hers in a way that very little else in her lonely life had been, and she was determined to hold on to it.
Isabella would never know that for one night, Emily craved the man she’d intended to marry.
Later, she knew, Emily would feel guilty, but she refused to allow guilt space in her mind for now. For once, excitement tingled to her fingertips. She was really going to do this. No one had coerced her into it; she had decided of her own volition.
If she was careful, she could have both. Pleasure and control.
“But,” she said, “there must be rules.”