Chapter Sixteen
By the time I returned to the Sutton townhouse, I was dressed in breeches and armed with a hastily scrawled address. While at home, I’d checked the post to find that one of my correspondents in London had informed me of a building for sale. Due to the fact that the neighborhood was overrun with cats, dogs, and people in sore need of employment, the building—although ramshackle—was available for a pittance. The moment I’d read as much, I’d been consumed with the desire to see for myself. How shoddy was ‘ramshackle’? Could it be salvaged or would it be a hazard? If the former, it sounded too good to be true.
And if Edwin meant to support me in all I did, then this seemed the perfect time for him to accompany me and give his opinion.
Although the hour approached midday, when I found him he was still lying abed. Awake, the sheets pulled across his lap to shield his nakedness, he sat with his back against the headboard and a slim volume in his hand.
“You’re still abed?” How could he stand to be idle for so long?
He set the book face down on his lap. Smiling, he glanced to where I stood in the doorway. “You returned. I was beginning to think you’d abandoned me again.”
My stomach turned a somersault. Frightened at the newfound intimacy between us, I’d run away without thinking of how it would make him feel if I didn’t return.
It doesn’t matter. I did return… albeit a couple hours later than he might have expected.
His heartfelt sigh drew my thoughts to him once more. His smile slipped as he drummed his fingers on the cover of his book. “You aren’t coming back to bed, are you?”
I gave him an incredulous look. “It’s nearly noon! Don’t you have work to be done?”
He hefted the volume. “I’m doing work. This is the latest issue of the Royal Botanical Journal.”
“You’ll have to finish it later. We’re going out. Shall I send in Isaac to help you dress?”
“I’m a grown man…”
As Edwin swung his legs around the side of the bed, the sheet pooled lower. The muscles in his chest and abdomen rippled with his movements. My mouth watered, but I forced myself to turn away. If I was destined to be distracted, I’d rather it happen after we examined this house for sale.
“Isaac,” I called as I turned down the corridor. If Edwin wanted to wear his fancy boots today, he’d already confessed to needing help.
Once both men were situated in the bedchamber and Edwin was well on his way to being ready to accompany me, I pilfered two cookies from the larder and ate them while I searched for paper and a graphite pencil. The paper was easy enough to find, situated in the desk in Edwin’s front parlor. The pencil was not as easy to come by. Ink would be impractical to bring with me in order to take notes of the state of the house.
If not in the parlor, then perhaps Edwin kept pencils in his study. I stuffed the second cookie into my mouth—these soft, sweet confections tasting strongly of cinnamon—and returned above stairs to continue the search. The study was sweltering. To keep from sneezing as long as possible, I kept the door open as I proceeded to search near the table serving as a makeshift workbench. A large, leafy plant blocked most of the surface, so I lifted it to check beneath its overflowing fronds.
“I’m surprised you’re able to handle that.” Fully dressed, Edwin smirked from the doorway.
“Why?” I examined the plant, wary. “Is it related to chrysanthemums?” My nose and eyes had started itching the moment I’d walked in.
“No, that’s a spider fern.”
I plunked the pot back onto the bench with alacrity. “Spiders don’t grow in it, do they?”
He laughed. “No. It’s so named because of the sweep of its leaves.”
I glared at him as I snatched the sheaf of papers I’d collected from the parlor. “Very funny.”
He grinned. “What are you looking for? I assume you aren’t trying to sabotage my plants.”
“Why yes, I’m so jealous that I can’t stand for inanimate objects to hold your attention more than I.” I strutted toward him, batting my eyelashes.
With another laugh, he cupped my face. “As if anything could prove quite as distracting as you when you’re in a room.”
“Is that meant to be a compliment or an insult?”
“Both.” Smiling, he leaned down to kiss me, long and slow. He tasted bitter from tooth powder, but I melted into his frame nonetheless. By the time he lifted his head, my knees were weak. “Good morning,” he said, his voice rough.
“Good morning,” I answered, even though it must be afternoon by now.
He ran his thumb across my lower lip, making me shiver. “Now, are you planning on telling me what it is you’re hoping to find in here?”
Yes. The building for sale. I pulled away, trying to regain my faculties. I couldn’t think straight when he touched me. In fact, all I could think about was maneuvering him back into bed and divesting him of his clothes, which would interfere with my purpose this afternoon.
“A pencil,” I answered.
He looked at me blankly. “You want a pencil?”
I hefted the blank pages I’d taken from the writing desk. “Yes. For notes. Where do you keep them?”
“I have one or two in the bedchamber…”
“Wonderful.” I stepped past him and hurried to that room. After shutting the door, he followed.
“Perhaps a better question would be what do you intend to take notes about?”
He paused in the threshold of the bedchamber as I continued into the room, heading for the bedside table, where I thought it most likely he’d keep a pencil on hand. I sidestepped Isaac, in the process of neatening the room, on the way.
With a hint of enthusiasm, Edwin asked, “Are we attending another botanical lecture?”
I snorted and turned toward him. “Don’t be absurd. I only snuck into the last because I was looking for you.”
Edwin shrugged, his face carefully impassive. “I thought it possible. I woke up next to you this morning, so there’s a high probability I’m still dreaming.”
Was he trying to say that I was the woman of his dreams? My stomach did funny things at the notion. I cleared my throat and returned to my search. “You’re not.”
Isaac froze, looking from one of us to the other. “Would you like me to leave? This sounds like a private conversation.”
I snorted. “As if anything is private in this house. I’m looking for a pencil, then we’ll be on our way.”
“On our way to where?” Edwin asked. He sounded a bit frustrated.
Isaac slid a graphite stick from between two books on the bookshelf and held it out to me.
“Thank you,” I said as I accepted it. When I crossed to Edwin, I offered him the scrap of paper with the address on it. “We’re going here. A friend wrote this morning that there’s a house for sale that might do for my animal shelter.”
Edwin glanced at the page. He crumpled it in his fist and tossed in on the ground, barring my exit. “No.”
The word rang through the air. For a moment, rendered speechless, I wondered if I was dreaming. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem nearly as pleasant as Edwin had made his morning sound. Closer to a nightmare.
“No?” I echoed, still off-balance.
We were a team. He’d promised to help. He loved—
No. He’d never said he’d loved me, had he?
“Do you have any idea where that address is located?” His voice and expression were hot—with indignation and anger, not passion.
I bristled. “Of course I do. I’ve lived in London my entire life.”
“So you want to walk into a dangerous neighborhood, knowing full well that even in that shoddy disguise you won’t necessarily be safe.”
He was insulting my attire now? I brushed my hand over my chest, reassuring myself that I’d bandaged it tightly. “I was going to hide my hair beneath a cap.”
“It isn’t good enough. That area is rife with crime. You’re small. That makes you an easy target.”
I scowled. “Perhaps that’s why I stopped to bring you along.” It wasn’t, but if it eased his mind, I would pretend.
“No,” Edwin said, his voice flat and final. “We aren’t going. Nor will you purchase a house in that district. It isn’t safe.”
“You can’t tell me what I can and cannot do.”
He crossed his arms, solidly blocking the doorway. From the way he shifted his feet to shoulder-width apart, he didn’t intend to hurt me. “I just did.”
“Um… Perhaps I ought to leave you two alone, after all. If you’d just let me pass…”
Edwin didn’t budge, not even for Isaac, who looked acutely uncomfortable.
In a hostile tone, I warned, “You don’t own me, Edwin. You can’t tell me what to do with myself or my money—regardless if we’re engaged or married or anything else to one another.”
His mouth turned mulish. Raising his eyebrows, he said, “Actually, I think I can. If you go near that neighborhood, I’ll consider it a breach of our contract. You’ll forfeit the money for your shelter.”
I balled my fists. “Very well, my lord.” I spat the address.
His face hardened, but he didn’t flinch.
“I’ll play the pretty fiancée for four more days, but after that, our agreement is null. I’ll dance naked in the street in front of that address if I so please and there is nothing you can do to stop me.”
When I tried to squeeze past him and stop out, he caught me by the upper arms. “I’m thinking of your safety.”
I pulled away, staggering back into the corridor. “Perhaps you ought to trust me to think of my own safety.”
Biting my lip hard, I relished the pain as I bent to retrieve the balled up scrap of paper. When I straightened, I found him looking at me, his expression unreadable. He might have been angry or merely bored, for all I could tell.
“I thought we were a team,” I spat as I turned away.
His footsteps vibrated over the floorboards as he followed. “We are. That is why I am so concerned—”
I whirled, halfway down the stairs, and brandished my finger. “Don’t hide behind your excuses, Edwin. If you truly supported me in everything I aimed to do, then you would find a way to compromise and come with me instead of insisting on your way.”
I continued to the front door. As my hand touched the latch, Edwin called after me.
“Where are you going?”
I glared at him over my shoulder. “I’ve been forbidden to pursue my goals, so I’m going home.”
He sighed loudly as I wrenched the door open. “Give it some thought. You’ll see that I’m right. We’ll find a different building in a better neighborhood—”
“Don’t expect me to return. I’ll see you tomorrow night at our engagement party, my love.” I slammed the door behind me.
If only I could slam shut the fountain of emotion pouring through me. Papa had been wrong. I’d been right all along. Edwin didn’t support me—we didn’t suit.