Chapter 18 #2
“I lost everything,” she said. “My father borrowed too much. Invested unwisely. Signed documents he should not have signed.” She kept her voice steady, though saying the words so baldly made emotions tumble to the fore.
Grief. Anger. Disappointment. Despair. “My parents died and I was alone and there was no one left, nothing left. The house, the furniture, the horses. All of it gone to the creditors. There was barely enough left for the burial.”
He stayed silent, only watching, listening, his expression revealing nothing, but his eyes… His eyes burned. Admiration? Compassion? Surely not.
“I have thought a great deal,” she said, “about what it means to have nothing. About how quickly it happens. One hill too steep, one carriage wheel too loose, one signature on the wrong document and a life is altered.”
He rose and crossed to her, his eyes never leaving hers, until they stood a hand’s breadth apart.
She wet her lips and continued. “The law gave him that power. Over everything my mother brought to their marriage, over everything they built, over my future. I know he loved me. But he was careless and optimistic, and he caused harm to me despite his intentions.”
He raised his hand, slowly, so slowly, and stroked the backs of his fingers along the curve of her cheek. Only then did she realize she was crying and he had wiped away her tears.
“I will never marry,” she said, the words tearing free, unplanned but not unwelcome.
“I will not put my fate in the hands of a husband, will not bring children into this world to be cast into penury at the whim of fate. I will never give someone else legal authority to make decisions that land me on the street with twenty-three shillings to my name.”
“I know something of a life arranged entirely by someone else’s authority,” he said. “I know what it feels like to have no recourse, no appeal, no exit.” He looked at her steadily. “I do not think you unreasonable, Minerva.” His lips curved in a spare smile. “I think you wise.”
Not beautiful. Not charming. Not elegant or delicate.
Wise. A word not pretty or romantic, and yet, she found it to be both. A compliment of the highest order. She suspected that to Dashiell Penrose, wise outshone most other qualities.
He had told her plainly what he was. She thought of the knight on the cold hillside and of the trees she and Kitty had seen, bent but not broken, shaped into something that survived.
She studied him, his eyes, thickly lashed, copper bright. His gaze dropped to her lips and a spark of heat flickered in her belly, unfurling to send coils of warmth snaking through her limbs.
Her mouth went dry, her breath coming shallow and quick.
She knew what he was; he had told her. And still, she did not step away.
His hands closed on her arms as he moved closer still, the strength and heat of him flush against her. Her head fell back and he kissed her, his mouth on hers, hard and hungry.
This was no sweet innocence, no tentative foray.
He consumed her, his tongue like silk, his breath mingling with hers, his lips firm and knowing.
The heat that ran through her lifted her, made her soar even as it made her entire body feel hot and heavy, her breasts, her belly, and there between her legs, a storm building until she kissed him back, her hands tangling in his hair as she strained against him.
This was pleasure, primitive and savage.
She had never known the like.
With a soft moan, she came up on her toes, molding her body to his, thigh to thigh, belly to belly, and she kissed him back, open-mouthed, hungry. Her fingers tunneled through his hair, soft and sleek to her touch.
When he pulled away, she made a mewl of protest.
He made a low laugh, the sound stroking her as surely as a touch.
For a moment, neither spoke. She lowered her hands from his hair and let them fall to her sides. He caught her wrist and turned her hand palm-up, pressing his lips to the centre, then closing his teeth on the soft mound at the base of her thumb, making her gasp.
His mask was not yet in place, his careful neutrality yet to be summoned.
She knew what he was. He had told her in no uncertain terms. And still she had chosen this, chosen him. Because she could. Because she wanted to.
“You should go,” she said, surprised and proud to find her voice steady though her pulse raced like a runaway cart on a steep hill.
Dashiell had been expecting her words since the instant he pulled away, since he felt her hands loosen in his hair and the space between them expand from mere inches to distance.
He retrieved his hat from the chair and moved to the doorway, pausing, his back to her, one hand on the door frame.
“I will not say I am sorry,” he said. He meant the words as honesty, as a way to convey the thoughts he would not share. I do not want to go. I want to stay here, in this room, with you.
He left without looking back at her, at the temptation of her standing there with her hair mussed and her lips full and well-kissed.
The path was cold after the warmth of the parlor and the heat of her body pressed to his.
Below, the sea crashed against the rocks, steady and indifferent.
He walked on, the path curving so that if he looked back, he would no longer see the cottage.
The wind was in his face and he welcomed it, the sharp bite of it against his skin.
I will never marry. He believed her because he had heard the tone of her voice, watched the nuance of her expression, understood the truth in her words.
What did it say about him that he had kissed her anyway, swept her up in his passion, kissed her and held her in the way he had wanted to since the moment her sleeve had brushed his outside Granger’s office?
He had pulled away because—
He had pulled away because she deserved a man who knew the truths about himself, one who could answer questions about the darkest part of his soul.