Page 34 of Lord Appleby's Gorgeous Imposter
“I did not know you were in England, nor that you came to see me. I…I have not returned to my cottage since last spring.”That was true. But did she tell him too much? Reveal in her tone how her heart ached to learn this now? Now, of all miserable times, when the admission changed nothing.
“I long to tell you now what I wrote in my letter.”
Her gaze flashed up to seize his. She should not ask. She should not want to know. But she did. “What did you write?”
“An apology.”
“No, no apologies! You’ve given enough!”
“For the years I had to leave you, yes! For my father’s demands. The marriage I could not postpone or annul or even end through divorce.”
His marriage that showed her how she was so wrong for him. How she would never become his wife. “Tate, you are not responsible for what others have done.”
“It made hell for us, for you, so yes! I will say this. All of it. All that kept me away. Now Belinda is dead, Vivi. I did what I must by all the rules of Society and I kept away from Norfolk and you for a year. It appeared I mourned her…but I do regret it was less than that.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She could not see him. But oh, she felt the iron bands of his embrace, the drum of his heart, the fine marble of his male form, and, yes, even his raw desire for her.
She clutched him. The man she’d adored since she was a girl. The man she’d admired and yearned for lo these many years. He was free now. A widower. A man untethered from the woman whom his father had chained him to with wealth untold and threats fantastic.
He lifted her face with both his hands. “I looked for you last spring because I wanted to tell you everything new and bright and possible then, but you were nowhere to be found. I went to George Farland.”
The man whose proposal she’d once considered taking. A tenant of Tate’s. A fine farmer. A fine man. One she could not marry because she did not love him. “Poor George.”
Sorrow suffused Tate’s manly features. “He did not know where you’d gone. I searched and found Charmaine in London. I caught her in her townhouse just as she was moving. But she said she did not know where you were.”
Viv winced. Charmaine always knew where Viv was. But it was news to Viv that Tate had gone to Charmaine, asked for her, and her sister had turned him away with no details.
He thumbed her tears away. “I searched, my sweet Vivi. I wanted to tell you this. Tell you more. Everything I have wanted to say for years!”
Viv stared at him. Charmaine could not tell him last spring where Viv was, lest the news ruin their project. So of course Charmaine had turned Tate away with no information.
Tate’s voice caught as he moved to embrace her. “But I have found you now. And I can say what I have wished to tell you for years. I value you. I admire you. I need you and I will not lose you again.”
Overwhelmed, she caught her breath.
He took her lips. His were warm and firm. He parted hers with a brush of his tongue to the seam. He darted his tongue inside, claiming all of her.
And for once, she let him have her, for she would not, could not, deny him or herself. Her lips molded to his with all the years of longing for him gone with the pressure of one kiss, and two, and another. Her arms bound him closer.
On a gasp, he bore her down to the chaise, her back to the silken damask, her legs open and his between hers. His kisses were stark and deep, fast and luxuriously wicked, his flesh searing hers.
This was what she had wanted from him since she was sixteen. She could not have enough now. His lips on hers. Her hands in his silken hair. His fingertips stroking her throat.
She gazed up at him, shocked she had him in such passion after so many lonely years. But she could not have him. Too much had changed.
She pressed her fingertips to his lips. “We must stop.”
He shook his head. “No. Not now that we have each other again.”
“We do not have each other.”Cannot now.
He reared back on his elbows and shook his head. “Let me be clearer, then. Last year, when I came to tell you I was free, I came with a special license.” He ran his fingers through the tendrils of her hair. “My darling, I came to marry you. I want you as my wife. I want you as my own.”
She stared at him, proud of his choice, furious at her own. “I wish…I wish I’d been there. But I was not, and now…things have changed.”
She’d fallen in love with him years ago. She was young, naïve, giving herself to fantasies, assuming she could have him. Thinking she was worthy, even though she was no one and poor. But his tenants suffered from his father’s bad management with floods and fires, and famine too. The man demanded Tate marry a girl he’d never met. Viv had been left alone to survive her mother’s creeping madness and death. To see Charmaine leave her with promises of fame and fortune and a prompt return. Viv had raised her chickens, ducks, pigs, and herbs. She’d confided her woes to kind old Fred, her donkey. She’d sold her eggs and chicks and herbal remedies. She’d survived alone.
And to learn that there could have been an end to her strife last spring was suddenly no salve to her wounds. She had gone from her little house, her friends and her animals and her herbs and garden. Left them to her purpose. Now she was committedhere in this hellish city. Cursed, she must be, to have found some peace, only to be drawn back into chaos.
