Chapter 5 #4
The silence made her squirm. She was not someone who must speak to fill a silence, yet his silence seemed to turn a spigot in her, and words spilled from her into the space between them.
“Why don’t you let me touch it again, the head of the jaguar? I quite like its heft in my hand.”
He cast a look down and played, rather absently—or so it seemed—with the ebony knob. Except whatever he did made her breath catch and her face grow even hotter.
“Are you sure it is I who make you do unspeakable things?” he asked softly, his gaze pinning her against the back of the seat. “Or are you just naturally fond of gentlemen’s…walking sticks?”
* * *
She shifted on the seat.
Felix would like to do the same: adjust certain parts so he was slightly more comfortable. But he also knew it would be no use: Nothing would take off the edge of his arousal—nothing except the possession of her.
He thought of her constantly: on her back, on her knees, on her feet, sometimes naked, sometimes not, but always with him inside her, and always with her eyes wide open, looking at him with that expression particular to her: lust, apprehension, covetousness, suspicion, and just a sprinkle of worship.
Even now he thought of it: using the handle of his walking stick to lift her skirts and push her knees apart, so that she would be exposed before him.
“I will find out, won’t I, when I marry the butcher?” she answered at last.
His fingers clenched over the handle of his walking stick. He hadn’t meant to react so obviously, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. What did she mean, the butcher? “Does he have a walking stick you have been admiring?”
She twisted her fingers. “I’m sure I don’t know about his walking stick—I have only seen him in his shop.
He is a good man and not unpleasant in appearance.
Rumor is that he fancies me, but Mother has let it be known, though perhaps not in so many words, that she would never allow any of her daughters to stoop to marrying butchers, greengrocers, and the like.
“But that’s because her father was a gentleman. My father was a fortune hunter, and I am far less fastidious about which sort of man is good enough to be my husband. A butcher’s money is just as good as a lord’s. If he will take Matilda in, then I will marry him.”
He did not want to believe her. But this was what truth felt like: a tight, hard knot somewhere in his chest. “Will he take in Miss Matilda?”
She shrugged. “That might depend on how well I convince him of my fondness for his walking stick.”
The handle of the walking stick was suddenly pressed into her chest, between her breasts. He had no idea how it happened. He had no idea he was capable of such recklessness—or volatility.
She looked at him with astonishment—and made no move to touch the walking stick again.
“Sleep with me and I will provide you access to the best private telescope in England, something your butcher would never be able to do.”
Her heart beat violently—each throb transmitting across the length of the walking stick to reverberate against his palm. “I thought I had made it very clear that I am not that sort of woman.”
The thought of another man touching her…of her, with that agreeableness she did so well, encouraging this man…of himself, with only his memories for consolation…
His fortune privileged him over most other men in London, but how did he compete with all the “butchers, greengrocers, and the like”?
Slowly he retracted the walking stick. “You will certainly eat well, if nothing else.”
He’d meant to project a certain levity, but he sounded caustic.
“One must look to the silver linings,” she said quietly.
“I am sure you will manage very well.”
“Yes,” she said, with a grave solemnity. “I will always manage, somehow.”
The carriage door opening startled them both.
He had not realized that they had arrived before Lady Balfour’s house.
Suddenly Miss Cantwell was smiling sweetly and thanking him for his kindness in seeing her home.
He, too, became all courtesy and gallantry, assuring her that he would have moved far greater mountains to ensure her ease and comfort.
As his coach pulled away once more from the curb, however, it was not their naughtier interaction that dominated his thoughts, but the determination—and melancholy—with which she assured him that she would survive marriage to just about any able-bodied man.
His entire plan had depended upon her failure to secure a man of her social station.
But he had not counted on her willingness to marry beneath her.
A butcher was an upstanding member of any community, but by becoming the wife of one, she could count on never again calling on Lady Balfour or the Tenwhestles.
Or friends she had made during her time in London. Or just about anyone else she knew from home. It was cruel, but until the world changed, the gentry would always hold themselves apart from butchers, greengrocers, and the like.
He imagined her in this new life, always making sure she appeared extra cheerful, because she never wanted her husband, her epileptic sister, or her new friends and in-laws to think her less than content.
He imagined her coming occasionally across an old acquaintance and the awkward conversation that would ensue, especially if she happened to be accompanied by her husband.
He imagined her reaching for a sheet of stationery, the beginning of a letter on her mind, and then hesitating, and finally giving up the idea altogether—she would not want to agonize the recipient with the decision whether to respond; nor would she want to anticipate a reply and then finally have to admit to herself one was never coming.
Not to mention the stars. The girl who wanted a telescope of that particular description wasn’t content merely to view the craters of the moon or the rings of Saturn. She wanted to see the mountains of Mars. The very outer reaches of the solar system.
Why would she deprive herself of everything that mattered to her, when she could easily—
He stopped his thoughts from going any further in that direction.
Instead, he hurled his walking stick onto the seat she had vacated and cursed her obduracy and stupidity.