Page 18 of Obsession: The Unspoken Sin
No, that wasn’t at all true.
“That the reason I’ve come to my rooms was the hope that you would be here, as you’d anticipated I’d be gone for the night.”
He found some comfort in giving her that truth at least.
“Alice,” he murmured, drifting closer. “I owe you yet another apology. I was an unmitigated ass. I was stodgy and boorish and judgmental, and that was never my intention—”
“And you’re forgiven, Laurence,” she said with a gentle smile.
Stopped mid-soliloquy, Denbigh blinked with rapid succession.
“Laurence, you’re a paragon,” she said with a wry smile.
“Given everything, I shared last evening, I’d have been surprised if you’d responded with an effortless nonchalance. I mean, it was not as though I was telling you how I’d been celebrating my birthdays these past years or what I’d had for breakfast. You just found out that I have a child. You’d never before heard that information. How else were you to respond?”
All the sweet relief her forgiveness brought vanished with her next words.
“I’m the one who should be apologetic, Laurence.” Alice resumed twisting that blade of guilt, all the deeper. “As I said last evening, I shouldn’t have struck you.” Her eyes grew stricken. “Regardless of what was said, I had no right to put my hands upon you. I regret that and always will, Laurence.”
Yes, this was to be his hell for his deceit against her. The Lord had punished him with her undeserved penitence. This was to be his hell, and here is where he deserved to be, for it mattered not that he was here on Exmoor’s behalf and supported his best friend. She was a friend to him too, and he’d come here under duplicitous means.
Desperate to climb out of this hell, he swiftly switched topics.
“Please don’t let me stop you from painting. I came here because I hated the way it ended between us yesterday, Alice. And I’d ask that you allow me to remain.”
He couldn’t make out what she was thinking.
Then, as if she had given it serious thought, she nodded.
“May I stay?” he asked.
“You want to watch me paint?” she asked, a twinkle in her eye. “That would be a first.”
Taking her playful tone and resurrection of their time together in the past as an invitation, he sauntered over.
“Whoa, that isn’t at all true. I enjoyed watching you paint when we were younger.”
Alice snorted. “You’re a terrible liar.”
Denbigh flinched. For a moment, he believed she knew the truth. She knew, and she was just torturing him slowly and viciously for his lies.
“I did love watching you paint,” he murmured. “I enjoyed it more than I should have. Certainly, more than your brother would have allowed or welcomed.” He issued that later reminder for himself.
Feeling Alice’s eyes on him, he looked over.
A memory rose up of when she’d been sixteen and attempted to teach him how to sketch. She positioned herself behind him, took his arm, and proceeded to guide him through the motions. It had been the first time he’d been unable to deny his desire for her, and shortly after, she’d declared her love for him. It had been unpardonable that he had encouraged her so.
“You always teased me about my sketches and painting,” she chidingly reminded him.
“Oh, yes. We both were very good at that.”
“We still are,” she rejoined.
“May I join you while you paint?”
“You may,” she said.
And with that, she danced over to those art supplies she’d always been a master at manipulating. Loosening his cravat, he headed to the foot of his bed and sat. He watched her as she worked. The quiet wasn’t the uncomfortable sort. There was a gulf of time between them, and so many stories and memories,but the comfortable companionship proved a welcome nest upon which they perched.
