Page 95 of Marry in Secret
Thomas took the tin down to the cellar. The little hidden corner was looking positively homey now. It wouldn’t be too much of a hardship for Rose to be locked in there for a few hours.
He thought of something else, and fetched a large china chamber pot.
Now Briggs really did look at him oddly.
“Might grow herbs in it,” Thomas said vaguely.
Then he headed off to finalize his arrangements. He called in on Phipps, Phipps and Yarwood, Rose’s family lawyers, to make out his will, leaving everything to her, and to make arrangements to collect the gold the following morning. He called in at his bank to see if anything further had come to light about his stolen money—nothing had. He visited Ollie to thank him for his friendship and assistance.
He came home in quite a gloomy mood.
Rose, surprisingly, was quite cheerful. She was full of plans. “I’ve only packed my oldest summer dresses,” she told him. “No point in ruining my new ones with seawater, and heaven knows what maid service we’ll get. See what an efficient wife you have? I’m all packed.” She pointed to a neat little red leather case sitting by the front door. “I’m not taking much. I thought it might be fun to go shopping when we arrive in Mogador. They have markets there, don’t they? I want to get one of those dresses you told me about that covers everything except the eyes.”
Thomas had nothing to say about that. His own bags had been sent to the ship already. He brought down a small, neat valise and set it beside hers. Only one of those bags was going onto the ship, and it wasn’t the red one.
“Dinner in fifteen minutes,” she said brightly.
“I’ll fetch some wine.”
“Oh, we don’t need any—” she began, but Thomas pretended not to hear. He wanted to check the cellar one last time.
Briggs had outdone himself. The floor looked freshly mopped. Briggs had also apparently taken it on himself to rearrange the furniture. He’d brought in a different chair and laid a small rug in front of it. Thomas didn’t see the point of the changes but he didn’t care.
He selected a bottle of wine—an excellent vintage for what was possibly their last dinner together—and went back upstairs. The dining room was a picture, with a low floral centerpiece in the middle of the table, flanked by two handsome candlesticks. Silver and crystal twinkled in the candlelight.
Dinner was served. They didn’t talk much. There would be no further argument. Their positions had been stated repeatedly, and Thomas was determined to make his last night with his wife a pleasant one.
He told her a few stories about his childhood at Brierdon Court. She told him that in the morning Kirk would be coming past with their horses, as usual. That suited Thomas. He enjoyed those morning rides with Rose and her family and the relaxed breakfasts all together afterward. And it would give him a chance to say good-bye to them all.
It was the closest they came to discussing the future, but it sat heavy and unacknowledged at the table with them.
The new cook had outdone herself, but Thomas wasn’t much interested in food. They drank and ate and at the end they rose from the table and with one accord went upstairs to bed.
Their lovemaking then was intense, with an edge of desperation—at least that was how it felt to Thomas. Hewas memorizing her, he realized at one point, making sure he knew exactly how she tasted here, how soft her skin was there, how her breath hitched just so when he did this, and how she shuddered and clutched at him, making that little humming noise she did when he did that.
And when he realized he was going over her like a damned accountant, trying to save her up for the long lonely days, or more, ahead—as if Rose could ever be summed up in some kind of list—he threw his mental notebook away and buried himself in her, losing himself in her, in the world of their bed. Alone. Oblivious. Together.
Afterward they lay, spent, sweaty and exhausted in each other’s arms. The curtains were open, and faint light from the waning gibbous moon cast the room in shades of slate and silver.
“Thomas?”
“Mmm?”
“You do know that I love you, don’t you?”
A thick knot formed in his throat. He tightened his hold on her.
“You love me too, don’t you?”
The knot thickened. He couldn’t bring himself to speak, not to speak those words she craved. They stuck in his throat.
But she sounded so small and uncertain in the dusky night, so unlike the bold, funny, stubborn, mischievous woman he’d married. And he was planning to leave her tomorrow, locked in the cellar, while he went off to who-knew-what. From which he might never come back.
But saying such things, opening yourself to those feelings, admitting them, it made a man vulnerable, too vulnerable.
Why did women want the words anyway?
Words were cheap. Words could pretend one thing and mean another. Words could deceive. Words betrayed. It was actions that counted, not words.
