Chapter Twenty-Four #2
Heat flooded her as she daringly said this last, and she wished with all her heart she might watch his face, but she did not dare lift her head and could see only how still he held. Would he confess to having ridden that very day?
He did not. Not really.
“We each have many interests, I daresay, which have yet to be learned,” was his airy reply. “But certainly Austin can ride. We both can. We may never have owned horses, but we did grow up with rich cousins.”
Maria’s frantic stitchery slowed and halted, like an automaton rusting. So that was all the explaining he intended to do? She made no sound, but her carriage sagged, and she turned her head toward the fireplace to hide her disappointment.
The next instant he was beside her, having crossed the room and pulled the other chair alongside hers.
“Don’t, Maria,” he urged in an altogether different tone. “Maria, look at me. Forgive me if I’m being reticent or…cryptic. Or if Austin has been—as well. You must allow me—us—to have our little private affairs which we will share when we are ready to. It is a matter of trust.”
A sharp little pain struck her like a dagger thrust. Then he did have something he was hiding from her?
“I told you my own little secret,” she said.
“Only when you could not help it,” he returned at once, his dark eyes glittering at her.
“Because I wanted to surprise you with the sofa!” she cried.
He said nothing.
“You—you say Austin and you have these ‘little private affairs’?”
“Everyone does, really,” he answered, rallying.
“Including you, Benjamin?”
“I am included in ‘everyone.’” But he reached for her, plucking her embroidery frame from her fingers and setting it aside, so he might take her hands in his.
Don’t tremble! she commanded herself, feeling it already beginning.
It’s too humiliating! The next thing you know, you will throw yourself at him, and how will either of you recover from the mortification of it all?
If he wanted to kiss you again, he would—that should be plain as a pikestaff by now.
Willing herself to be made of iron, Maria left her iron hands in his warm ones and did not permit herself to respond to his squeeze.
He sighed. “Maria, I do have a little something I am keeping from you, but I hope, like your surprise sofa, you will think it a good little something. And I promise you will know of it soon, whether it succeeds or fails. That is—I confess I would have hidden it from you if it failed, but if you would prefer to know…”
“Oh, Benjamin, I would prefer to know,” she nearly wailed. “Always. Good or bad. We are married now. We should share our confidences. Are you certain you can’t tell me?”
“Completely.” He took the sting from his words, however, by leaning toward her and dropping the lightest of kisses on the tip of her nose. “Irresistible though you are.”
Iron, Maria. Iron iron iron!
“You will know all soon. I promise. For better or worse.”
How could she not believe him? It was all she could do not to clamber then and there into his lap! She permitted herself one slow nod.
“Good.” With a chuckle, he dropped a second kiss in the same place.
“Oh, and when Austin comes, please don’t bring up his—er—change in professions.
I imagine he was already awkward about it this afternoon and no doubt thinks I owe him one for putting him in that position.
So no further questions or remarks about it, please. ”
“Or you’ll kiss me again to silence me?” she murmured.
“Be careful or I may kiss you again just to kiss you again.”
To her embarrassment, her swallow was audible.
He might call her irresistible, but the memory was too fresh of how she had made a fool of herself in the dining room, assuming a posture of kissing when no more kisses were forthcoming.
Therefore she straightened a fraction, putting more space between them, and striving for lightness.
“Won’t you tell me a little about your secret plan—at least, what it would look like if it were to succeed? ”
“And risk its failure by tempting fortune?” His thumb began to trace a circle along the back of her hand. “Hmm. Dangerous.”
“Please?” she wheedled, coughing a little to disguise the breathlessness his caress caused.
With a mock sigh he grinned at her. “Very well. It would not be the first good thing lost because a lovely woman could not be resisted. May you find your power over me a comfort, if all my great hopes fall to the ground.”
“Pooh,” said Maria, all the iron in her melting to be called a lovely woman with power over him.
Thoughtfully he regarded the (unremarkable) ceiling.
“Let me see…if my secret plan were to succeed, I picture an entirely new beginning. I see myself having found employment both gainful and adequate. There would not be riches, perhaps, but there would be not just two sofas but an entire lodgeful of furniture, which I and the partner of my life would enjoy with abandon.”
“Really, Benjamin?” she breathed, her eyes shining. “And would there be family and friends nearby?”
“Certainly, after the cloud of scandal has blown away—puff!—into the distance, never to be remembered again.”
“It sounds heavenly. I almost wish I hadn’t asked because what if I really have jeopardized it with my curiosity?”
His gaze returned to her, serious. “Of course you haven’t. You couldn’t. It’s nothing to do with you. But no matter what does happen, be assured, Maria, you will be taken care of. You must trust me.”
“I do,” she assured him with her whole heart, to be rewarded with her hand lifted to his lips.
“Then you won’t ask me any questions yet, even if I need to make a little trip and be gone a few days?”
“What?” Maria snatched her hand back, gawping at him. “What little trip? Where? Why?”
“That’s part of the secret, I’m afraid. But I promise you again—you will know the whole shortly, for good or ill.”
She could not help but feel he had spoiled it all, ambushing her with this trip (which he had known about all this time and been waiting to introduce), and that all the kisses and caresses had just been meant to soften her.
And they had done just that, with humiliating speed and effectiveness.
But if she reversed her position now, insisting once more on complete disclosure, that did not ensure he would cooperate, and would it not make her hurt more plain?
She took a steadying breath, waiting for calm. “I understand. May I at least know when you will be gone?”
“I hoped tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!”
“Yes. And for this reason only I am sorry for your employment—and for the outbreak of measles at Keele’s, for that matter—for it leaves you alone, apart from Chop and Co, and unable to go and visit your sisters in St. Lawrence or Abingdon.
I would defer my journey, but the sooner I go, the sooner everything will be resolved, and I am fearsomely impatient for everything to be resolved. ”
“But—”
Again he silenced her with a kiss, and again it undid her, robbing Maria of the wherewithal to shove him in the chest and tell him what he might do with his too-delicious blandishments.
She was saved—if saved it could be called—by the jolly voice of Austin Ellsworth ringing out, accompanied by his springing step. “Knock knock!”