Page 42 of Taming of the Rake
“You and your sisters must have found him enthralling,” Regina said.
This time, his lips parted in a full smile, and a chuckle rumbled up from his throat. “I was, more than the twins, I think. Father’s stories took on an adventuresome bend, and Petra and Constantia weren’t always fond of the bloodshed. Mother often teased him over his dramatic voices … told him that he might have been a famous actor if only someone could get him on a London stage.”
The note of sadness in his voice made Regina’s chest ache, and also filled her with a shameful jealousy. How fortunate he was to have had a father who was loving and attentive. She felt terrible for envying him what she’d never known.
“He must have been a wonderful man,” she murmured, laying a hand on his arm.
He blinked as if coming out of stupor and frowned. “Now I’m the one turning this conversation morose.”
“No,” she protested. “You clearly miss your father and his loss is so fresh. If you want to talk about him, you should.”
He took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. “It is difficult to think of him at times, because when I do, I am reminded that the memories grow fewer and farther between when I recall the last few years of his life. When someone dies, it seems natural to lament that there wasn’t enough time. He wasn’t terribly old, but neither was he a young man. The past seven years or so … well, there was plenty of time but I wasn’t here. I did not want to be.”
“Why not?”
David issued a dry snort, and shook his head. “I was young and bored. Lancashire was too sedate, and I wanted excitement. I wanted parties and the company of scandalous people. I visited often at first. Christmas, Easter, Mother’s birthday, the twins’ coming out.”
Regina tightened her hold on his hand. “You couldn’t have known time was so short.”
“No, but I should never have let myself forget that he wasn’t immortal. There was a time I couldn’t wait to pack my things and run back to London—to my friends and the life I had made for myself there. Now … I would give anything to hear one of his stories. Even just one last time.”
Glancing up from their joined hands, she was stunned to find a tear tracking down his cheek, then another. As if he sensed her perusal, he dropped her hand and swiftly wiped them away. Once they were gone there was no evidence of his grief, no lines of sorrow marring his face.
“Tell me more about your mother,” he murmured. “Another happy memory.”
There was almost a pleading edge to his voice, prompting Regina to recall one of her favorite childhood past times. Taking hold of his shoulder, she gently urged him onto his back, then lowered herself beside him, gazed focused upward. Her hand brushed his, and she hooked her little finger around his.
“Sometimes we would go to that meadow and lie in the grass. We would watch the clouds for hours. Mother would tell me that if I looked long enough and hard enough, I might see an angel. It was the hope of my life to one day lay eyes on one.”
David’s finger twitched against hers, but he remained otherwise silent. When she turned her head to look at him, she found his gaze riveted to the sky. His face was serene, with not a trace of his earlier tears. There weren’t many clouds today, but he still watched as if searching for something.
“Do you miss London?” she asked.
“I did at first,” he admitted. “Being home was bittersweet and the problems awaiting me there only added to the strain.”
“Will you return after your affairs here are in order?”
He closed his eyes, but a palpable energy thrummed from him and into her, jolting and powerful even through the minimal contact of their joined fingers.
“I cannot speak for the future, Regina. But just now … I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
Chapter 10
Regina glanced up from the book laid across her lap to where David stood in the doorway of her bedroom, hair tousled by the wind, smile wide and eyes bright. She had just taken a hot bath, dressed in another one of her scandalous nightgowns, and every lamp and taper lit in the room. Her menses had ended yesterday, and she’d sent for David to resume his visits.
The morning after she related her failure to conceive to David, it had disconcerted her to awaken beside him. It wasn’t the first time she had passed an entire night with him in her bed. But there was, she had discovered, a difference between sleeping beside a man she’d spent the night fucking, and one who had spent eight hours simply holding her. It wasn’t as if she had experienced either situation before David. Randolph had always promptly taken himself off to his own chamber after using her. Her courses had been an aggravation to him, an impediment from satisfying his lusts. It hadn’t mattered that there was always some other woman stashed nearby. Randolph had wanted her when he wanted her, and any complaint or denial on her part would send him into a fit.
It had been one thing to sleep beside him after a vigorous night of working to conceive. She could tell herself it was all about their contract, a necessity. But what was she to think about how good it was to simply exist in the same room with him? There had been no expectation of either of them; no demands or thought of their arrangement—though in the back of her mind, she knew they were fast running out of time. There was only so much time left for her to get pregnant if there was any hope of passing this baby off as Randolph’s.
Perhaps that was why she had been so distraught to discover she wasn’t pregnant after the first few weeks of effort. Nevertheless, David had been content to comfort her. Such niceties were not a part of their contract, despite David’s insistence that his role as a courtesan could and should include them.
He was quite convincing, and it was difficult to think of practical matters in his presence.
And then, there had been their afternoon spent walking and talking and lying about in the grass if they were friends as well as lovers. There was no reason for him to have called upon her, and they’d both known that. Yet, she had asked him to stay, and despite knowing it was a bad idea, Regina had reveled in every moment. The memories of her mother hadn’t been dredged from the depths of her mind for some time, and now they were fresh again. What had she been thinking to share them with a man she intended to eject from her life once he’d served his purpose? Why had she comforted him and delved so deeply into his life?
It now occurred to Regina that she ought to set him straight. While she certainly welcomed the delights of bedsport, they teetered on the edge of taking their connection too far. It shouldn’t be too difficult to mend, keeping their arrangement strictly about the business at hand. Otherwise, parting ways in the end would prove too difficult.
Yes, that was it. Pleasure and conception of the babe, only. No comfort or intimacies. No falling asleep in his arms and waking up to the thought that she might gladly do it again the next night. No giving in to the idea that she might have more of what she had been missing.
