Chapter Eight Mary Beth’s Choice #3
“I want you, Ambrose. Stay with me tonight.”
The last restraint she had felt beneath every earlier kiss gave way then.
He came to her fully.
Their first joining had none of the polished grace novels promised, and Mary Beth was grateful for it.
The sheets tangled. Her hair caught beneath his hand and made her laugh breathlessly; Ambrose swore under his breath when she pulled him closer.
Without anyone trying to perform or win, desire gave way to a trust that startled her more than the pleasure did.
Mary Beth had known pleasure before. With Ambrose, the difference was not intensity so much as attention. He watched her face, listened when her breath changed, learned what she liked without turning the learning into vanity. She gave him the same honesty in return.
When release finally broke through her, she hid nothing.
Ambrose held her through it.
Later, their breathing slowed in the dark.
Mary Beth lay on her side with one leg tangled beneath the sheet. Ambrose was beside her, one arm under his head. The fire had fallen low enough to redden the grate.
She waited for the familiar instinct to return.
Usually she would have wanted distance by now, along with the satisfaction of a completed choice and the private relief of knowing the night could be folded away before morning.
It did not come.
Instead Ambrose said, “How old were you when you first learned the north field flooded?”
Mary Beth turned her head. “What?”
“You knew exactly where the water went before I did.”
“You are discussing drainage in my bed.”
“I am interested.”
“This is appalling.”
“You did call my engineering habits unbearable.”
She laughed and pulled the sheet higher.
“I was sixteen. There was a spring storm. My father had sent me to Blackthorn for a season because my aunt believed country air would improve my disposition.”
“Did it?”
“No.”
“I am relieved.”
She told him about walking the flooded field in borrowed boots and being punished for returning with mud to her knees.
He told her about leaving school before he wanted to because his father’s wages could no longer carry the household.
She asked how he had learned enough mathematics to move from quarry work toward railways.
“At night,” he said. “Books borrowed from a surveyor who thought I was less stupid than his foreman did.”
“Was the surveyor correct?”
“Occasionally.”
Mary Beth rested her cheek against his shoulder.
This was more dangerous than anything they had done before.
Nakedness had never frightened her. Learning the private architecture of his life was another matter.
Bodies could be remembered selectively. A man’s childhood was harder to dismiss. So was the way he admitted, without drama, that his mother had once pawned her wedding brooch to buy coal. So was the fact that Mary Beth immediately began wondering whether the brooch had ever been recovered.
“It was,” Ambrose said when she asked. “Years later. I bought it back from the same shop.”
“Does she still have it?”
His answer took a moment.
“She died three winters ago. My sister has it now.”
Mary Beth went still.
“I am sorry.”
“So am I.”
He did not turn the grief into a lesson. He simply let the truth remain between them.
Mary Beth put her hand over his.
After a while, Ambrose kissed her hair.
“What did Sablehurst offer you last night?”
She could have avoided the question. Instead she told him.
“Nothing formal. A demonstration, perhaps. His mother received me. People who have ignored me remembered my name. Benedict wanted me to understand that the door can open again.”
Ambrose’s fingers tightened once beneath hers.
“And can it?”
“Apparently.”
“Do you want it to?”
Mary Beth considered the ceiling in the dim firelight.
“Sometimes. Not enough to be owned by the person holding it open.”
Ambrose turned toward her.
“I do not want you choosing hardship to prove something to me.”
“And I do not want you deciding comfort is automatically better for me. We have had this argument.”
“We have. I lost.”
“You learned. There is a difference.”
“I was hoping the bed might improve my chances.”
“It has damaged them severely.”
He smiled.
Mary Beth kissed him again, slower now.
The second time they came together was less uncertain. Afterward she did not ask whether he intended to leave.
Ambrose did not reach for his clothes.
Near midnight, Mary Beth rose long enough to turn the key in the outer sitting-room door as well. She checked the corridor herself, then returned to bed.
Ambrose watched her settle beneath the sheet.
“Tomorrow morning may be complicated,” he said.
“You were the one who insisted upon tomorrow.”
“I am beginning to see flaws in my argument.”
“Too late.”
She blew out the last lamp.
In the dark, his hand found hers and stayed there.
Mary Beth lay still, listening to the unfamiliar sound of another person breathing beside her and to the rain ticking softly at the glass.
The key remained turned in the outer door, his fingers loosely threaded through hers.
Morning would be inconvenient. For once, she did not mind.