Page 60 of Hold Me Fast
“Do you not want a son to carry on your name?”
The quick answer would not do. “That would be nice. But then, we might only have daughters. Or none, as you suggested. Either way, I will have you. And what I need, Tamsyn, is you.” This time, she allowed him to kiss her neck, even tipping it to make it more accessible.
“I still crave drugs and alcohol,” she said, her voice so hushed that he would not have heard it if his ear had been farther away.
“You continue to resist the craving,” he pointed out. “You know what it will cost you if you surrender, and I trust in your courage and determination. But if you do have a slip, I will still love you.” And that was his answer to Objection number three.
“Will you do more than kiss me?” Tamsyn asked. Demanded, it sounded like.
Aha. Objection number four.Jowan hedged. “Precisely how much more?”
She met his eyes with a glare that was also a challenge. “Everything,” she insisted. “Right here, right now.”
Jowan understood. She was afraid her experience would upset him, or distract him, or—perhaps—disgust him. He was sure it would not. After all, he had been dreaming of this for a long time. Close to a decade, since he first noticed his best friend was developing curves.
However, he had reservations as he looked around the rock-strewn floor. “Everything, yes. Here and now, no. It is cold and rocky. I want you in a bed, Tamsyn. How deeply does Patricia sleep?”
All her doubts showed on her face. That, in itself, spoke of how much she trusted him, for she wore the armor of calm competence for nearly everyone else. “You will come to me?” she said. “Tonight?”
She frowned and added, “Or tomorrow night. You have been traveling for a week, and have barely had time to change before coming out with me again.”
“Tonight,” Jowan said firmly. “I have been waiting a long time for the invitation, my dearest love. If we put it off until tomorrow night, I will not sleep a wink tonight for imagining it.”
Tamsyn blushed.
“But since we are here,” Jowan suggested, “I suggest we try for a little foretaste. Without taking our clothes off or impaling ourselves on the rocks.” He pulled her closer for another kiss.
*
Tamsyn had nointention of sneaking behind Patricia’s back. She was, after all, an independent woman, the owner of the house, and Patricia’s employer. Even so, her heart was in her mouth when she closed the door to the parlor, shortly before Jowan was due to arrive to join them for dinner.
“Patricia, may I have a private word with you?”
Patricia’s face lit up. “Sir Jowan proposed!”
“No. Or, at least, yes. But that is not it.” Tamsyn paused for a moment, because that was, in fact, precisely it. “At least, that is sort of it.”
Patricia raised her eyebrows as she clasped her hands in front of her in what Tamsyn recognized as her “I will wait until you are ready to explain yourself” pose.
It worked on the children at the school, and Tamsyn could feel it working on her. “Jowan wishes to marry me. I wish to go to bed with him first. I fear that, when it comes to it, he will remember all he knows about me and be disgusted. Or perhaps that, when he knows he can have me without marriage, he will not feel the need to…”
She trailed off at the stern look Patricia was giving her as if she had been caught under a broken window with a ball in her hand.
“You do Jowan a disservice, my dearest Tamsyn. I understand why, but if I were a gambling woman, I would be proposing a wager that you will be betrothed by tomorrow morning. That is what you are trying to say, is it not? That Jowan is joining you in bed tonight?”
Tamsyn lifted her chin, saying defiantly, “I am sorry if you disapprove, but I need to do this.”
“Dear Tamsyn, what right have I to approve or disapprove? I am your friend, not your keeper. Do what you must. I am confident, in any case, that you will be wed, soon. And you know it in your heart, I think, even if you are not prepared to admit it, yet. Even I know Jowan is one of those men who can be trusted, and you have known him for far longer than I.”
After dinner, Tamsyn said she would not need her maid tonight, and that they and the cook could also have an early night once they had cleaned up after dinner. She would pour Sir Jowan a port and let him out when he had finished his drink.
She poured one for Patricia, too, and a glass of freshly made lemonade for herself. They had formed the habit of sharing a drink of an evening when Jowan came to visit. They continued a conversation begun over dinner about people and places that Jowan had seen in London. Patricia was very impressed that he was on speaking terms with a duke and duchess.
“I shall make an early night of it myself,” Patricia announced when she had finished her port. “You need not worry, Jowan, that I mean to play gooseberry. But you had better stay here for another fifteen minutes to be certain the maids are in their attics.”
Jowan looked startled, his eyes turning towards Tamsyn. Patricia giggled as she left the room.
“Does she know?” Jowan asked.
