Twenty
As Jeremy descended to earth and the explosion in his brain subsided, he collapsed atop Yvette. His heart beat a wild rhythm in his ears, and his blood was on fire.
It had been so good, better than he’d ever dreamed it could be. It felt so right to be with her that it terrified him. Because he ought to be raging against the madness that had possessed him. He ought to be chiding himself for letting his iron control slip.
But he couldn’t. It had brought him to this point, this woman. A woman he still wanted. A woman he feared he’d never stop wanting.
“Jeremy?” she whispered.
“Yes, sweetheart?” He brushed his lips over her hair, reveling in its satiny texture and flowery scent.
“You’re . . . rather heavy. I’m having trouble breathing.”
He rolled off her with a laugh, an echo of the giddy joy he’d known in his childhood before everything had gone to shit. She’d brought him that, too. “Sorry, didn’t mean to smother you.” He tugged her into his arms. “I wanted you to feel ‘the little death,’ not the big one.”
She snuggled close. “What’s the little death?”
He drew back. “Don’t tell me that the Queen of Cant has never heard of la petite mort.”
“I only know English cant, not French,” she said with a pretty pout.
“Well, la petite mort is what you and I just experienced—that culmination of our . . . activities.” He thumbed through his limited store of street cant gained from Damber, and added, “Perhaps you know it better as the term ‘to come.’ ”
She blinked. “Oh! I have heard of that. I always wondered what the definition meant, but the one time I asked a lexicographer, he blushed and ran out of the room, so I never asked again.”
Jeremy threw his head back against the pillow and laughed heartily. “I would dearly love to have seen you questioning a man about that.”
“Stay around, and you may get to see it again,” she said lightly.
Just like that, everything turned more serious. Nothing like blunt honesty to sober a man up.
He shifted to face her. “I fully intend to stay around. Now that I’ve taken your innocence, I intend to marry you.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said hastily. “I told you I don’t expect that.” She cupped his cheek. “I just don’t want you to leave quite yet. Stay. Finish your paintings.” Her voice turned halting, ragged. “And then, when you’re ready to go—”
“I won’t leave you ruined. It’s unacceptable.”
A frown knit her brow as she pushed up onto one elbow. “And it’s unacceptable to me to have a halfhearted husband.”
“I suppose you’re waiting for an ardent profession of my love,” he said, unable to keep the bitter note from his voice.
Something flickered deep in her gaze. Anger? Disappointment? He wasn’t sure, since it vanished almost as soon as it appeared. “I’m not waiting for anything from you,” she said. “You’ve told me often enough that you have no intention of taking a wife—a second wife, that is—and I took you at your word.”
Her seemingly blithe disregard for what he’d viewed as a certainty unsettled him. “I also said that if I ruined you I knew I’d have to marry you. Did you think I lied?”
“Of course not. But I made it quite clear that you didn’t have to, and I assumed that you accepted what I said. Because I meant it. I still do.”
This was starting to annoy him. “Yvette—”
“Has it occurred to you that you aren’t the only one who can be selfish?” She left the bed to pull on her night rail, her back to him. “That perhaps I merely wanted to experience pleasure at your expense?”
That had not occurred to him. It was preposterous. The blood smearing his prick showed that, for God’s sake. They were lucky it hadn’t been enough to stain the covers, but that didn’t change the reality: She’d been a virgin. And virgins didn’t blithely go about seducing men for pleasure.
Did they?
Apparently he’d hesitated too long, which she took as an answer to her question. “So you see, it’s settled. No one need marry anyone. You’ll remain here to complete your paintings, and then—”
“Yvette. Nothing is settled. It’s true that I wouldn’t have chosen to marry, but now we must. It’s as simple as that.”
“It is not!” She whirled on him. “If we marry, it will be because we want to, not because you feel duty-bound to. I won’t be part of your repeating what happened twelve years ago.”
“You won’t be,” he said tightly. “It’s an entirely different situation. This time I’m secure in my profession. This time I’m not giving up any plans for you.”
“Oh? So you will continue going to brothels for your models?”
He blinked. “Well . . . obviously that would have to end. But—”
“And you intend to stop doing whatever you please whenever you want because you now have a wife whose needs must also be considered?”
Even though Yvette was unaware of all the circumstances, her remark was so uncomfortably close to what had happened with Hannah that it made him scowl. “I know how to be a husband, damn you. Just because I act like a bachelor doesn’t mean I don’t realize—”
A knock came at the door into the hall. They both froze.
“Who the devil is that?” Panic in her face, she searched for her wrapper. “Oh, heavenly day, could Edwin have figured out that I’m in here?”
“It’s probably Damber,” he murmured. “The damned lad got done sooner downstairs than I thought. He can wait.”
“You can’t be sure it’s him.” She dragged on her wrapper. “Even if it is, you have to get dressed or he’ll suspect something.”
“He’ll suspect something when he finds you in here in your nightclothes,” he grumbled, but got out of bed to pull on his drawers and trousers.
A knock sounded again, this time louder. “Master?” came Damber’s voice through the door. “I’m done packing up downstairs.”
The infernal fool spoke in what he thought was a low volume, but a low volume in the streets where Damber had grown up was a high volume in the quiet halls of Stoke Towers. And Blakeborough’s room was on the same floor, damn it.
“I’m coming,” he growled at the door.
He turned to Yvette, only to find her heading for the servants’ door. “Wait! We’re not done talking about this.”
A shutter came down over her face. “There’s nothing to talk about. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Damn it, Yvette,” he began, but she was already out the door.
He considered going after her, but then Damber would really be suspicious. And since he hadn’t secured her hand in marriage yet, he dared not do anything that might compromise her reputation. Given her story about Ruston, Jeremy feared that Edwin trying to force her into marriage would only get her back up and make her refuse outright.
She mustn’t refuse to marry him. Even though he would be all wrong for her. Even though she could find better. None of that mattered any longer. He’d taken her innocence, so he would marry her.
Muttering a curse, he strode to the door and swung it open. Only after Damber stood there gaping at him did Jeremy remember he was shirtless.
“What are you staring at?” he barked. Standing aside to let the boy pass, he cast a quick glance about the room, but there was no trace of Yvette. Except for a hint of her perfume.
But maybe he was imagining that.
Damber fixed him with an accusing glance. “Why is the bed all mussed?”
Jeremy thought quickly. “I sat down to rest for a moment and fell asleep. I had just roused and was changing my clothes when you knocked. So I’m afraid I haven’t gotten any packing done yet.”
God, he sounded like an idiot.
“I suppose you want me to do your packing, too,” Damber grumbled. “It’s nearly two a.m. I thought you wanted everything done by now so we could head off first thing.”
He couldn’t leave now. Everything had changed. “Actually, I’ve decided to delay my departure a few days.”
“What?” Damber crossed his arms over his chest. “After I already packed up the paints and canvases and the—”
“Yes, yes, unpack it all.”
“Tonight?”
Jeremy took pity on the lad. “It can wait until morning. But early, mind you. By the time the family is up I want everything back in place, before anyone can wonder what’s going on.”
“The servants are still going to wonder. They already knew we were leaving. What do you want me to tell them is the reason for staying?”
Damn, he’d forgotten that. After he offered for Yvette, which he intended to do first thing in the morning, they might very well speculate about what had happened in the wee hours to change his mind.
He couldn’t have anyone gossiping about his future wife. “Tell them I got a good look at the portrait in the light of day and realized I wasn’t as far along as I thought.”
That would also serve as an excuse for remaining if Yvette turned down his first offer. Because, damn it, he wasn’t going to leave here without securing her hand in marriage. If he had to work on that bloody portrait for a month to have time to convince her, then he would.
“So you want I should tell the grooms to stable the curricle?”
“Yes, then you may go on to bed.”
“Are you sure?”
Jeremy glanced sharply at him. “Why wouldn’t I be sure?”
The hulking fellow shoved his hands in his pockets. “I dunno. You’re acting peculiar is all. One minute we’re sneaking about the house to pack up and slip away in the dark of night, and the next you’re having a nap. Not to mention that the room smells like . . . like . . .” He sniffed.
“Like what?”
“Like you been tupping one of the maids.”
Oh, God. Jeremy laughed, hoping it didn’t sound as false to his apprentice as it sounded to him. “Have you ever known me to tup a maid?”
“Well, no. But there’s always a first time.”
“You’re imagining things,” Jeremy said irritably. “Now, out with you. I can’t go to bed as long as you’re lounging about in my room.”
Damber sniffed. “Just trying to help. But I’ll make myself scarce, I will.” He headed out the door, muttering, “I swear, sometimes I think you mad as a hatter. Or p’raps a little . . .”
The boy’s mumbling trailed off down the hall. With a roll of his eyes, Jeremy closed the door and headed straight for the brandy flask he kept on his dressing table.
Only a few hours until dawn. No point in going to bed now; he wouldn’t get any sleep. Besides, Blakeborough was an early riser, so if Jeremy wanted to catch him and offer for Yvette before she got up, he’d better stay up.
All right, he supposed he should wait until she agreed to marry him. But it wasn’t unusual for a suitor to first ask a woman’s male guardian for her hand. And it couldn’t hurt to get her brother on his side. Especially with Yvette surprisingly reluctant.
Cursing, Jeremy drank from his flask. He had handled it badly, damn it. He should have made it sound less as if it were a “duty” and more as if he were in love with her. Though that probably wouldn’t have worked. Yvette could read him too well for that. And he would have been lying.
He scowled. Yes, lying. Just because he thought about her too much, wanted her too much . . . craved her too much didn’t mean he loved her. Love was about putting someone first. Clearly he didn’t know the first thing about that. If he’d loved her, he wouldn’t have tumbled her with no heed for the consequences. Or risked her reputation by letting her talk him into taking her to a brothel. Or done any number of the things he’d done in the last few weeks with her.
And clearly she knew he was a bad bargain. She hadn’t agreed to marry him, had she? She hadn’t made any grand professions of love herself.
I’m not waiting for anything from you. You’ve told me often enough that you have no intention of taking a wife—a second wife, that is—and I took you at your word.
He winced. He hadn’t exactly made it easy for her to say anything. With a flash, he remembered her expression after he’d dictated their need to marry with all the subtlety of an ox.
She’d been hurt. She’d hoped for more, and he’d hurt her.
As guilt clutched at his throat, he took a longer swig from the flask. Damn it, this was why he’d wanted to stay away from her in the first place! He wasn’t the right sort of man for her.
Not that it mattered; he had to marry her. No other man would take her after this, or if he did unwittingly, he would make her life hell when he learned the truth. And she deserved to have a decent husband, to have a home of her own and children.
An image leapt into his head, of Yvette happy and content with a babe on her knee. His babe on her knee. Some fat and sassy cherub of a girl or a restless, sweet-faced boy crawling along the floor to his father . . .
No! He’d been that route before, only to have it all turn to shit in his hands. He wasn’t going to throw himself into that dream again.
He would offer marriage because he must, because it was the right thing to do. But he would not indulge his sudden inexplicable urge for a romantic entanglement. That way lay madness.
It was a miracle that Yvette made it back to her room without crying. Once she was there tears boiled out of her, born as much of anger and frustration as of hurt feelings. She resisted the childish urge to tromp about her room and throw things that made a lot of noise. That wouldn’t do a bit of good, and it would call attention to her secret activities, besides.
But blast it all, she wanted to scream! Him and his pity proposal. What had she been thinking? Had she really believed that sharing a bed with the blasted man would magically make him swoon with love for her? Say he would die if he couldn’t have her?
She dropped onto the bed. Yes. She had believed it. Not consciously, of course. But the fierceness of his desire had convinced her that he really cared, that he wanted her for more than just a bed partner.
That he might actually love her.
She snorted. What a fool she was. Hadn’t she learned long ago that rogues only wanted to get beneath a woman’s skirts?
No, that wasn’t fair. A rogue would have taken her to bed and then said a merry farewell. Jeremy had resisted her, tried to run away from her. And when she hadn’t taken no for an answer, he’d made love to her and proposed marriage.
Rogues didn’t propose marriage.
She threw herself back on the bed. So now what was she to do? Obviously, if she did find herself breeding, she would have to marry him. But barring that possibility, she didn’t want a husband who saw marriage to her as a supreme sacrifice. Though neither did she want to be left ruined and alone.
She hated conundrums. Especially the kind that involved a certain aloof artist who became a pillar of fire whenever he touched her or kissed her or bedded her.
A sigh wafted out of her. Every part of her ached, yet she would do it again in a heartbeat—not just for the amazing pleasure at the end, but for the wonderful feeling of closeness she’d felt with him.
The feeling had been building for days, but it had blossomed into something more when he’d listened to her tale about the lieutenant without criticizing her behavior. He’d been irate on her behalf, ready to slay dragons and lop off horns for her.
She sat up. Yes, he had been, hadn’t he? Not exactly the behavior of a dispassionate admirer of her body. Perhaps the dratted idiot really did have feelings for her. Perhaps he even really wanted to marry her.
Or perhaps she was spinning dreams again that could never come true.
Well, if something more than a guilty conscience and a rampant prick was guiding his determination to marry her, he’d have to tell her. Or show her. Or somehow reassure her that wedding him wouldn’t be a huge mistake.
Because she wasn’t about to risk marrying a man who could make her life a misery. She’d rather be ruined and alone than suffer that.