Chapter Thirty-Seven
Cat lay on her side above him, cheek propped in one hand. The pins in her hair had scattered so the curls rained down over her shoulders and onto the bed linens. A few stray locks brushed the hand lying quiet on the sheets.
Jones rubbed a thumb across the ridges spanning her knuckles, then turned her hand over so he could see the palm. She was so rarely without gloves he had yet to learn the lines crisscrossing the pale expanse. They were not deep, as his own were, her skin free from wear and calluses. He stared hard at thin lines, thinking to commit them to his memory. Someday, he would not be able to touch her hands. Someday soon they would be gone from his life.
Sorrow pierced through him, into some secret place, followed by a layer of panic that slicked over his skin. She would be gone from his life.
“Jones.”
He did not want to meet those eyes. They would drive him into the ground. Into a hell he would be forced to live for the remainder of his days.
“Jones,” she said again, her voice breathless and wary—and insistent.
He did look up. And he was driven into the ground by eyes that were fierce and bright.
“There is a way.” Her fingers curled around his, tight. “I can wait until my birthday—it is not long now—and we could marry.”
Everything in him stilled. He could only stare at the face of this lovely woman who was beyond any dream he might have had.
“I could breach the contract and forfeit Ashdown Abbey.” She swallowed hard and though the words held honesty, her eyes already held sorrow. “But the rest of the properties would be ours under the trust.”
“No.” He found his breath after all. “I was born in the rookeries, Cat. Born there, abandoned there, and should have died there long ago.” Many of the boys he’d known had died, either on the gallows or in the alleys.
“I know.” She sat up and set her other hand over his, so that his single one was engulfed in both of hers, protected by the soft skin. “You didn’t.”
“I should have. I should have died the day my mother left me on the doorstep of the foundling hospital.”
“Again, you didn’t,” she repeated. “Because you didn’t die, England is safer than it would have been, I am alive when I might not have been, and you’re—” She broke off, lips pressing together as though to keep words from spilling out into the air between them. Then, finally, as if the words would not be held. “You’re loved.”
Despair crawled inside him, settling itself between his heart and his mind to poke fun at his dreams. “Cat,” he croaked, pushing up so they sat face-to-face, naked body to naked body.
Perhaps, he thought, even bare soul to bare soul.
Her hands moved over his, fluttering, then settling again, warm and soft. He wondered if she would be able to draw his essence into her, scoop it up and hold it against her heart.
He wished she could.
“Someday, when this is over, we can—”
“There is no ‘we.’” The words bulleted from his mouth, anger and sorrow filling him. He drew his hands away and climbed from the bed. “There will never be a ‘we.’”
Why couldn’t she see this?
“There can be,” she said, rising to her knees as if she had forgotten she wore nothing but stockings. “There can be, if we want it enough.”
“There is no way to turn me into a gentleman. I cannot be the man you need.” The words scored his throat, his heart.
“The man I need?” She began to search the bed for her hair pins, piling them together in the center. She flicked her gaze toward his, eyes blazing and loose hair glowing in the firelight. “Need? I don’t need a man. I want one. I want a man who will stand by me. One who loves me. A man with shoulders strong enough to bear any responsibility and a nobility that would put any gentleman I know to shame. I would share what I have with him.”
“What you have.” Even as the words spilled from his lips he wished he could take them back. They were unfair, but true, though it was not right to hold that against her—nor could they be unsaid.
“Yes.” Cat’s anger rushed from her in a single breath. Working the auburn flames of her hair, she coiled it at the nape of her neck. “What I have. Even without the Abbey, there are thousands of acres and pounds. We would not be poor.”
She could not see it, could she?
“Cat.” He stood naked in front of her. Vulnerable. He would let her see what it meant. “If we married, I would be a joke in the ton. The little plaything you gave up your inheritance for.”
“That is ridic—”
“It’s accurate.” He shrugged, conscious of every inch of his bared skin. “I could not bear the whispers, the shame I would bring to you. We could try to hide in the country until the scandal died away, but it would resurface every time we came to town. If we had children, they, too, would be marked by my birth. The whispers would follow them.”
“We could pretend you were from Northumberland. Or the Continent. A lord come to visit—”
“No.” He said it firmly, ignoring the blue eyes that had become so huge in her face. “I cannot pretend to be someone I’m not. Particularly a lord. The ton would know—I can’t even remember to wear gloves to dinner.”
“I don’t care. I cannot change my birth, nor can you.” She spoke just as firmly as she plucked up one of the hairpins. “We can only try to find a way to make a future together. We—oh, bugger it.”
Shock pushed a laugh from him.
“Jesus, Cat. Do you know what ‘bugger’ means?”
“Of course.” She shoved the hairpin, then a second, into the coil of hair as if each one were a splinter of her frustration. “I’m a lady, not an idiot without ears. Nor am I stupid enough that I don’t understand you’re scared to be in love. Scared to take on a role you weren’t born to.”
He reared back as if she’d struck him. “Scared?”
Her arms fell away, helpless at her side. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”
“But true.” Heart pounding, he met her gaze, then traced the contours of her face with his eyes. “I would be terrified to marry you. What if I failed?”
“What if you didn’t?”
Silence. From her, naked on the bed. From him, naked and standing beside it.
He turned away first, searching for their clothing on the floor. He found his breeches and tugged them on. The fire burned low in the hearth, washing the remaining fields of fabric on the floor with pale gold. He scooped up her gown, stays, petticoat, chemise—each one soft and sending up her scent. When he looked at Cat again, his arms full of her things, she had left the bed and stood before him in her stockings and garters. The red-gold curls above her thighs still called to him, as did the narrow but strong shoulders and the face full of resolve.
“Here,” he choked out. “Your chemise.”
If she didn’t put it on, he would not be able to keep his hands from her.
She slipped it over her head, giving him enough space to breathe. “Why can nothing be simple?” she asked, emerging from the linen. Temper had dissipated from her words and features.
He found temper had left him as well.
“Life is not simple, Cat.” He breathed deep and offered her the stays.
“You’re right.” She sighed, her shoulders curving inward as she inserted her arms into the stays. She reached behind her, trying to pull the laces tight.
“Let me.” He dropped the remainder of her clothes onto the bed and reached toward her stays. “No one has a simple life. Not even the lowliest farmer on your lowliest property will find life to be easy.”
He pulled the lacings tight for her, working them top to bottom.
“You are not a novice at dressing a woman, Jones.”
His fingers froze. Looking up, he met a pair of amused lips and dancing eyes. “Ah. Mm.”
“I can only be grateful, as your experience made up for my inexperience.” Her expression sobered again as he finished the lacing and she picked up her petticoat. “What would you do, Jones, if you could have a simple life? If no one expected anything from you, if you had no obligations and no one depending on you, what would you do?”
He did not have to think. He knew the answer, because he had known it since he was seventeen and had first read of it. “I would go to Colle di Val d’Els.”
Cat paused, fingers caught in the ties of the petticoat. “Italian, isn’t it? I don’t speak it well.”
“I believe it is the Hill of Elsa Valley. Elsa is the river running by the village.” He had never seen a painting, but he’d read the description in travel journals. “The village is in Tuscany.”
She cocked her head, a soft, surprised smile curving her lips. “A village it Italy? That is where you would go?”
Jones shrugged a shoulder. “The oldest part of it is high on a hill, and at least four or five hundred years old.”
“Why do you want to go there?” Petticoat replaced, she reached for her gown. Jones picked it up first, shifted it so it would fall easily around her. He gave it to her, ensuring it was at the easiest angle for her to set it over her head, then worked the buttons as effortlessly as he had undone them.
“I have read that the valley and fields surrounding Colle di Val d’Els are green and gold with olive groves. Vineyards on the slopes lead down to the river, and you can see the entire valley from the old stone village atop the hill. Life is slow and easy, with wine and olives and sunshine filling each day. Can you imagine?” He had, many times. “Wine and olives and sunshine.”
Cat stood before him, dressed but not as polished as when she first arrived. Her expression was sweet, her mouth not fully smiling but still brimming with knowledge. “Will you go there, someday?”
“If I can, yes.” Though he knew in his heart he would never reach the village.
“Imagine us both there, then,” she whispered. “Where life is nothing more than wine and olives and sunshine.” Cat offered her hand, bare palm up. “What do we do now? Just continue as if we didn’t make love? As if there is nothing between us?”
“Yes. There is nothing else for us.” His fingers accepted hers. When they met that soft, smooth skin, he thought—just for a moment—that his soul sighed.