Sherry Thomas - Ravishing the Heiress

As his eyes widened in surprise, she rose, swept aside the skirts of her dress, and left him on the chaise longue by himself.

May I have a moment of your time?” asked Fitz.

Helena had gone to her room the moment they’d returned. Fitz’s wife, after speaking to their housekeeper, had also started up the stairs.

She turned around. “Certainly, my lord.”

He liked her slightly arch tone. When they first married, he’d thought her as bland as water, whereas Isabelle had been more intoxicating than the finest whisky. But he’d since come to realize that his wife possessed a dry wit, a quick mind, and an ironic view of the world.

“Do you suppose it has ever occurred to Hastings,” she asked, as she descended the steps, “that cynical mockery might not be the best way to court our Helena?”

Pearls and diamonds gleamed in her hair: His countess was not at all averse to some glamour in the evening. “I dare say it occurs to him daily, but he is too proud to alter his approach.”

She ran the house from her sitting room one floor above. But when they received callers on matters of business, or when they had something to discuss, they always used his study.

She sat down in her customary chair on the opposite side of his desk and opened her fan, a confection of black lace over tortoise shell slats. Her taste in personal adornment sometimes surprised him—the fan was more than a little seductive. But he could hardly fault her for enlivening her usually prim wardrobe with an unexpected accessory or two.

She ran a gloved finger across the slats. “You want to see me about Mrs. Englewood?”

Of course she’d have guessed. “Yes.”

Did her fan tremble? He couldn’t tell, for she closed it in a crisp motion and laid it across her lap. “So you plan to reestablish old ties?”

He must have been quite transparent. “We would like to.”

She tilted her face toward him and smiled slightly. “I am glad for you. It was terrible that the two of you had to be apart for so long.”

“About our pact—” he began.

“Don’t worry about it. The last thing I want is to come between you and Mrs. Englewood.”

“You misunderstood what I was about to say: I am not embarking on an affair with Mrs. Englewood—not merely an affair, in any case. It will be a permanent arrangement and I intend to be her faithful companion.”

“I did not misunderstand anything,” she said quietly. “I expected no less of you. And I wish the two of you all the best.”

Something in her sympathetic agreement made him ache to hold her. She rarely came across as lonely, but now she did.

“Before Mrs. Englewood and I begin our arrangement, I intend to honor our pact first.”

The fan slid from her fingers and hit the floor with a hard thud. “What do you mean by honoring it first?”

He retrieved the fan and handed it back to her. “It would be a dereliction of duty on my part otherwise. It also wouldn’t be fair to you and your family—for me to accept this great fortune and then not even try to give you a son to inherit the title.”

Her usual keenness seemed to have deserted her. “You want to give me a son,” she echoed slowly.

“It’s only fair.”

“But we don’t know how long it would take for me to produce an heir. You might have to wait for an indefinite period of time.” She came to her feet. Her voice rose two octaves. “What if I am infertile? What if I am one of those women meant only to have daughters? What if—”

She broke off in midsentence, as if realizing that she was reacting in a most uncharacteristic manner. He was transfixed: He hadn’t seen her display this much emotion since their honeymoon—and then it had been because he’d been in danger of ruining both his health and his mind.

She swallowed. “My assessment of the matter differs from yours.” Her voice was once again modulated—under control. “I understand perfectly that your arrangement is to be a lasting one and I applaud it. And I think that after all the years that have gone by, you should not waste any more time.”

An appalling realization stole upon him: She didn’t want him to touch her. Even with their marriage transformed by friendship and affection, the thought of sleeping with him still upset her as much as it had when she’d first proposed their pact.

“It won’t be very long,” he said. “Six months. It doesn’t matter whether you conceive or not and it doesn’t matter whether the child is a boy or a girl: six months and the rest is the will of God.”

“Six months,” she repeated faintly, as if he’d said sixty years in Siberia.

On any given day, he could recite her schedule by the minute. Yet her heart was like a walled garden, invisible to one not granted entrance.

“I know the real reason you’d prefer our pact never come to pass,” he heard himself say. “You wanted to postpone it several months ago, before we even learned of Mrs. Englewood’s plans to return.”

She stared at him, as if afraid of what he was about to say.

“You don’t mention him but I haven’t forgotten. There was someone you had to give up to marry me.”

She gave a queer little laugh. “Oh, him.”

He closed the distance between them. She never wore perfume, but her soap smelled of the lavender from their estate—along with a hint of something softer, sweeter. So that when combined with the warmth of her body, the other-wise austere scent of lavender became subtle. Interesting. Sultry, even.

He placed one hand on her shoulder. She trembled almost imperceptibly at his touch—he hoped it was surprise and not revulsion.

“Millie—I think I may safely call you Millie, no?”

She nodded.

“We are friends, Millie—good friends, furthermore. We’ll get through this together. And when it is all said and done, I won’t be the only one free to pursue old dreams. You will be able to go after yours with all my best wishes.”

She looked away. “I scarcely know what to say.”

“Say yes, then.”

“You won’t—you won’t require that we begin tonight, will you?”

His pulse raced. Of course not, but the very thought of it made him hot everywhere.

Then he realized why she would think him capable of such an abrupt, indelicate demand: His fingers hadn’t been content to remain in one place, but had roamed up the column of her neck to explore the tender place just beneath her ear.

In a motion that might be called a caress.

He hastily withdrew his hand. “No, not tonight.”

“When, then?” Her voice was barely audible.

He stared where his hand had been, her smooth, bare shoulder, her slender throat, her dainty earlobe. “A week from tonight.”

She said nothing.

“Listen to me: It will be fine. And who knows? You might conceive right away.”

She averted her face, but even from this oblique angle, for him, who’d studied the subtle gradation of her expression for years, it was easy to see she was trying very hard not to grimace.

He was hesitant to touch her again so soon, but it was unthinkable that he should not comfort her.

“It will be all right,” he said, pulling her into a loose embrace, “I promise.”

It would be all right for him, not for her.

Could he not understand what he was asking of her? To become his lover knowing that she would be set aside at a specific date, knowing that even as he lay with her, his heart and mind were already contemplating his blissful future with Mrs. Englewood?

Tell him. It’s nobody’s fault but your own if you don’t tell him.

He kissed her hair.

Stop. Don’t touch me.

But she loved their rare instances of physical contact. When he’d lifted her and spun her around, when he’d danced four waltzes in a row with her, when he’d wrapped his arm around her shoulder upon the airship. And of course, that night in Italy. Those were the memories she savored over and over again, every detail polished to a high sheen, each sensation savored to the full.

Even now her body yearned to be closer to him. She wanted to press her nose into his skin and inhale hungrily—he always smelled as if he’d just taken a walk across a sunny meadow. She wanted to rub her palm against his jaw to feel the beginning of stubbles. She wanted to slide her hands underneath his shirt and learn every single shape and texture, with the fierce dedication she’d once put into mastering the Grandes Études.

There is no one else. I love you. I have loved only you. For pity’s sake don’t make me do this.

He kissed her on her ear, a close-lipped, chaste peck. Desire charred her all the same. She was burned to the ground, reduced to rubble.

“It will be over soon,” he murmured. “It will be over before you know it.”

And for the rest of her life, she would be only an afterthought in his and Mrs. Englewood’s radiant happiness.

I can’t. I can’t. Leave me alone.

“I will be the most considerate lover. I promise.”

A small sob escaped her despite her best efforts to the contrary.

He embraced her more tightly. She could scarcely breathe. She wanted him to never let go.

“All right,” she said. “Six months, a week from tonight.”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

It was the beginning of the end.

Or perhaps, it was only the end of something that was never meant to begin.

The Honeymoon

1888

There was a giant in Fitz’s head, tirelessly wielding a sledgehammer the size of Mount Olympus. He twitched, the floor hard and cold against his aching body.