Page 52 of The Trouble with True Love

“But, sir, it’s raining.”

“Is it?” He strode rapidly on, his body in the hot, agonizing turmoil of unrequited lust, his mind glad of the cool drizzle already dampening his hat and coat. “Good.”

“But, sir,” Hart called again. “You’ll catch cold.”

He made short shrift of the inclement spring weather and its possible consequences with a wave of his hand, and kept walking. A cold, he could not help but feel, would be no more than he deserved for breaking his cardinal rule about women.

Stay away from the innocent ones.

Innocent young women invariably expected matrimony, and who could blame them? For a girl of good family, marriage was the only socially acceptable path through life, the only means of fulfilling physical desires, ensuring a stable future, and having children. His conversation with Clara over tea had only served to underscore why he’d established his cardinal rule in the first place.

But for a man, even a peer, marriage was not a necessity, a fact for which Rex daily thanked heaven. He’d spent his entire youth watching his parents destroy not only each other, but also the passionate love that had brought them into matrimony in the first place. To love and then come to hate what you had loved—he could imagine no greater hell. And though he couldn’t remember the exact moment he’d decided never to wed, not once since then had he had cause to regret his choice, or even to doubt it.

He still didn’t. And that made what he had just done all the more reprehensible.

For Clara, marriage was not a mere necessity of existence. Romance, marriage, children, love everlasting—these things comprised the dream of her life. They were things she wanted and deserved, things he would never willingly offer any girl.

A cold gust of wind came up, taking his hat. He watched, indifferent, as his gray felt derby tumbled through the air ahead of him and landed in a curbside puddle with an unceremonious plop.

Rex stepped over it and kept walking.

He passed Mrs. Mott’s Tea Emporium, and he couldn’t help giving it a resentful glance as he walked by, wishing he’d never agreed to meet Lionel there for tea. Why there, of all the bloody tea shops in London? Why her, of all the women in the world? It was laughable, ridiculous, and aggravating as hell that he should be lusting after a girl he could not have, a girl who wanted everything out of life that he avoided like the plague.

The rain was falling harder now. Ahead of him, people caught out in the deluge were huddling under their umbrellas—an inadequate protection, given the wind. Those without umbrellas were darting into doorways and ducking under awnings, seeking shelter. Not Rex.

Rex kept walking.

He welcomed the rain that pelted his bare head and soaked his gray morning coat and dark blue trousers. He savored the cold wind that had taken his hat and was now whipping his coattails. These were just what he needed, for the sweet taste of Clara’s mouth still lingered in his own, the scent of her hair still filled his nostrils, and the imprint of her body on his still burned him like a brand.

Worse, her innocence itself inflamed him. The hunger in her inexperienced kiss, the passion that had led her to abandon maidenly restraint and push him down on the settee, the awareness that he was in territory no man had ever explored—all these had acted on him like paraffin tossed onto flames, flaring the darkest, most erotic parts of his imagination more strongly than the naughty wink of a Gaiety Girl or the knowing smile of a courtesan ever could.

And he’d known, damn it all, known instinctively when he’d sat behind her at Covent Garden, that he might be getting into something he would find hard to master. He’d barely made his arrangements with her before his oh-so-clever scheme had come back to taunt him. Even while indulging in erotic notions about her, he’d sensed just how strong was the fire that he was playing with. His body had tried to warn him, and he had not taken warning. Today, that fire had nearly flared out of control. Had he not stopped when he had, he might very well have taken her virtue, right there on a settee in her father’s drawing room.

He felt like a dog. He watched people peeking curiously at him from beneath the brims of their umbrellas as he passed them, and he wondered if their curious stares were because he was walking, coatless and hatless through a pouring rain, or because he was emanating lust for all to see. Either way, getting drenched was just what he needed and what he deserved.

He was soaking by the time he picked up a taxi at the Holborn Hotel, but thankfully, by then his ardor had cooled, and his body was once again under his strict regulation. Innocent young women with big dark eyes, romantic ideals, repressed passion, and marital ambitions were once again relegated to the same place in his mind that he put oysters, Afternoon-At-Homes, Evensong, and aspic: things that were not for him.

“And all’s right with the world,” he muttered, but as the taxi carried him back to the West End, he felt anything but right. Clara Deverill had shown him how erotic innocence could be, and if he couldn’t keep that newfound knowledge at bay, her virtue, her dreams for her future, and her blissfully sweet notion to marry for love would all be in jeopardy.

He didn’t want any of that to happen to her. He didn’t want to kill her dreams, or taint her ideals about love and romance. Hell, he must have had some romantic ideals himself at one time, even if he couldn’t remember them anymore.

A carriage containing four women was not usually a place one would expect silence, particularly when it was conveying them to a picnic on a fine, sunny afternoon, but as the Duke of Torquil’s open landau made the journey down Park Lane from the duke’s home in Upper Brook Street to the Stanhope Gate of Hyde Park, all four ladies in the duke’s carriage were silent.

Carlotta, usually the first to point out the negative aspects of any situation, seemed in a happy frame of mind today, content with enjoying the beautiful afternoon and anticipating the event ahead. Married to the duke’s brother, Carlotta was Clara’s chaperone while Irene was away, but that duty had been quite a dull one until Lady Ellesmere and Lady Petunia had conspired to bring Clara out. That decision had benefitted the duke’s entire family, and Carlotta was too relieved by the re-elevation of their social status to complain about anything.

Nor was the silence from Sarah all that surprising. The youngest of Clara’s three sisters-in-law, Sarah was a quiet girl by nature. Sarah’s sister, Angela, however, was usually a lively and outspoken sort, but as the carriage rolled down Park Lane, even Angela was uncharacteristically silent.

For her own part, Clara sensed a certain tension among her sisters-in-law, but at the moment, she was in no frame of mind to wonder at its cause, for she was gripped by tensions of her own, and those dominated her thoughts to the exclusion of all else.

In only a few minutes, she would see him again. A week had passed since that extraordinary kiss, but though she had seen his great-aunt at several social events during the past seven days, she had not seen him.

The prospect of seeing him today, however, did not bring the happy anticipation that a girl ought to feel about seeing the man who had so recently kissed her. No, Clara’s anticipation at the notion of seeing Galbraith again felt more like dread.

The joy she’d experienced during those extraordinary moments in her father’s drawing room had, alas, faded over the past seven days, supplanted by her innate common sense. Her dazed wonder had slowly, inexorably, given way to a sobering appreciation of harsh realities.

For one thing, her actions had been foolish. Galbraith was not a man any girl could rely upon—not for marriage anyway, and for her own life, she wanted no path but marriage. Despite that, she had allowed him the liberty of kissing her, knowing he had no honorable intent of courtship or view to matrimony. What did that say about her self-respect?

She had been very wrong to allow it, and even now, she didn’t understand what had possessed her. How could she have ignored her scruples, abandoned her customary caution, and gone against her very nature? She was not, she reminded herself, an intemperate person. She was calm and steady. She was plain. She was shy.

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