Page 19 of A Gentleman's Offer
‘No? No, you’re not sorry after all, or no to something else?’
He sighed raggedly. ‘No, I’m not sorry, but I should be. No to… all the crazy ideas in my head. I took advantage of you, I told you quite unforgivably that I wanted to kiss you and you were understandably agitated by all that had occurred…’
‘I kissed you first.’
‘I know you did, I’m hardly likely to forget it, but that doesn’t help at all! I’m trying to take the blame, Meg. As a gentleman must. It shouldn’t have happened. And we shouldn’t be standing here talking. Drawing attention to ourselves. I dare say I am acquainted with the residents of half these houses, not to mention the people leaving the party, some of whom are about to drive straight past us and get a good look at our faces.’
‘You’re right.’ She set off at a fair pace in the direction of Brook Street, her long legs making short work of the pavement, and he caught up with her. They walked for a while in silence, but it was a silence that hummed with tension. If they hadn’t been interrupted, if the carriage journey had been longer because her father had lived in Kensington or Hampstead, where would they be now? He didn’t want to dwell on what might have happened next, however wonderful it would have been. It wasn’t as though he could, as he should in all honour, offer to marry her to save her reputation. He’d be perfectly happy to do it, if it weren’t for the inconvenient fact that he was already bloody well betrothed to her sister.
She said, ‘You didn’t take advantage of me – I won’t let you say that, or even think it. I knew exactly what I was doing.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. But I don’t think either of us knew what we were doing, or we wouldn’t have done it.’
‘It felt as though we did.’
He groaned. She was making this much harder than it needed to be, with her damned inconvenient honesty, which he was now obliged to match. He might wish that what had just passed between them had never happened, but he couldn’t let her think that he hadn’t wanted it. He’d wanted it more than anything he’d ever experienced in his life, and he wasn’t prepared to lie about that, least of all to her. ‘I know that. I know it felt right. More than right.’
‘Necessary.’ She said it softly, matter-of-factly, but it pierced through him like a blade. It was so exactly what he felt himself. Trust her to put it into words that shouldn’t be uttered. Naming things made them more real, and so much more dangerous. ‘It felt necessary.’
He wouldn’t admit quite so much to her. What good would it do? ‘We’ve had a difficult few days, we’ve been forced together, and we spent time in that damned bawdy house, where everyone was looking at us as if we’d gone there together for a purpose quite different from our actual intentions. The whole atmosphere was overheated, you must have felt it. In fact, I know you did. I’m sure that’s partly to blame.’
‘Did it excite you, then, being in that house with me, having everyone think…?’
‘No,’ he said again, when he wanted to match her candour and say yes. Yes, I wanted to demand they give us a room we could lock ourselves away in for as long as we both wanted.
‘You can admit it, you know. I won’t be shocked.’ After a moment, ‘It excitedme. It felt wicked, forbidden, and I liked it. If we’d been left alone there…’ He groaned at the thought, and at the piercing knowledge that she shared it. It was all too easy to picture what might have happened. His self-control was a fragile thing just now. ‘Although it began, I suppose, when you took hold of me and almost kissed me in the park. Or even before that.’
They were back at the mews now, the narrow street as dark and deserted as it had been a few hours ago. Nothing had changed, except that they’d kissed. Would undoubtedly have done much more than kiss, if they’d not been so rudely interrupted. And now they were talking about it. It was thrilling and terrifying in equal measure. He was supposed to be a gentleman of honour. Hewas.
‘I’ve been unsettled ever since I came to London,’ she told him, moving a little further ahead, into the deeper shadow. He followed her. Of course he did. He’d follow her anywhere in this seductive darkness. ‘I used to have a lover – well, no, that’s wrong: I had a sweetheart. We used to meet, and kiss…’
‘You climbed out of your window in the moonlight.’ He remembered what Jenny had said, and he could easily imagine her doing it. He could imagine her coming to meet him, rather than another. He’d be waiting for her, eager and impatient for her touch. He’d take her in his arms… His imagination was doing a great deal of work tonight.
‘You heard and understood what she was saying? I was afraid you had. I did do that. More than once, many times. And I liked it. The adventure, and the kissing and all the rest. It’s natural, isn’t it? But we’ve stopped now, he and I. A few months back. He didn’t break my heart, nor I his – we just drifted apart, I suppose. I’m sure he’ll marry soon, before he’s twenty-one; people often do, in the country.’
‘You didn’t want to marry him?’ Though it was none of his business, he could not help but ask.
‘It never occurred to me. Maybe it did to him, but he must have realised it would be a mistake. You shouldn’t have to marry someone just because you want to kiss them in a barn. Or do a great deal more than kiss them. You need a better reason, or you should.’
‘You’re a dangerous radical, Meg Nightingale.’ It was so intoxicating to talk so intimately with her, here in the warm night. She was intoxicating, that was the truth.
‘Do you disagree with me? I wouldn’t have thought you were a hypocrite. I expect you’ve kissed people, and done much more than kiss them, and yet not married them. I won’t believe you, actually, if you tell me you haven’t.’ He had to laugh – he had no defence against her devastating frankness. She went on matter-of-factly, ‘It’s not as though my parents’ marriage made me want to rush into matrimony with the first man I met, so I could be miserable just like them.’
How could he raise any honest arguments against that? ‘You told me theirs was an arranged marriage. Like my parents’ was; a family decision, not theirs, such as so many young people were obliged to submit to, twenty or thirty years ago. And that match wasn’t particularly happy either, for that matter. Not at the start, and certainly not for long.’ There was much more he could have said, but it was not his secret to share.
‘So you thought you’d make yourself unhappy with my sister in exactly the same fashion, even though times are changing for the better and arranged marriages are no longer so common. That makes no sense at all.’
‘You’re right, of course. That was a terrible mistake too. I sleepwalked into it, I thought it didn’t signify what I did, because… well, it doesn’t signify why. I hope it’s not too late to put it right.’
‘Dominic…?’
‘Yes, Meg?’ She hadn’t called him by just his Christian name before, while he’d been making free with hers for quite a while, it seemed. Odd that it should matter.
‘Why are we still talking? It doesn’t seem to be resolving anything, and all the while you could be kissing me. Holding me.’
‘In this alleyway?’ He took her in his arms, not needing to be told twice, and she relaxed into him with a little sigh.
‘Well, there’s no barn available. Or private room. The plain truth is, I’m confused, Dominic. I’m worried about Maria, and a little angry with her too – why didn’t she write to me, or to Mama? I still don’t understand that. I’m beginning to wonder if I ever really knew her, and if others, like Jenny and Lady Primrose, know her much better, because she has allowed them to. I think she must have secrets, when I never kept any from her, however discreditable they might be considered to me, and that hurts. I don’t know what’s going to happen to any of us. If we can’t find her, I wonder if it’ll be because she’s perfectly safe and well but just doesn’t want to be found. A little part of me is thinking she might just be very selfish and careless of others’ feelings. And if she does choose to come back, on another whim, what then?’
