Page 20 of The Secret of My Seduction
Her face burned. She did—she wanted so much more, the words themselves were too big to speak. For a moment the question seemed to burn in the air, the fulcrum on which her life might turn. She had admired Liam—wanted Liam—from the start, but now she’d gone and fallen hopelessly in love with him. If she told him…
“I planned on an entire night,” he added. “The carriage won’t return for you until morning.”
She blushed, relieved that he’d spoken before she could blurt out her adoration. He referred only to tonight—that answer was easier. “Yes.”
Chapter Ten
She woke in the night, disoriented and cold. For a moment Bathsheba lay still in alarmed confusion; the blankets had fallen off, but why was she naked? She groped for the covers and encountered Liam’s bare chest.
She went still, her fingers still brushing his skin. He was warm and firm and so male. Heridealmale. She had expected a night of lovemaking, but he’d given her more: not just physical pleasure but emotional pleasure as well. Bathsheba didn’t have many close friends. The trials of daily life, coupled with the swings in her fortunes, had left little time for friends. At times she wondered if she even knew how to let down her guard with others. It was strange, then, how she felt so at ease with Liam.
Bathsheba laid her hand against his chest and felt the steady thump of his heart. His heart might not be hers, but she had learned to take what life offered her. And if this interlude with Liam was all she got, she would save up every moment in her memory.
He stirred at her touch. “Too early,” he muttered, reaching for her. Bathsheba let him draw her close and tug the blankets over both of them.
“It’s almost dawn,” she whispered.
His lips brushed the back of her neck. “Almost doesn’t count.”
She smiled. “It’s a long drive back to London. I dare not linger.”
“You’ll be home before the street lamps are put out, even if you lie here another hour.”
“Is that so?” He growled a sleepy affirmation. Outside the window a thrush called, the sound sweet and clear in the night. One didn’t hear that in Totman Street. “Why do you live so far from town?” she asked on impulse.
He shifted, settling her more comfortably against him. His voice was a drowsy rumble, but he answered readily. “It’s quiet here. My father told me land was the best investment. And if I lived in London my mother would come to call on me all the time, which would be untenable. All in all, it’s perfect.”
“You bought this house to avoid your mother?”
He grunted. “Of course not. I dine with her every Sunday, discuss the latest gossip, endure my brother’s company—and then I leave. If she came to call at my home, manners would prevent me from leaving.”
Bathsheba’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “I don’t believe you!”
“No?” He kissed her neck. “Perhaps you’re right. My manners aren’t fine enough to keep me from leaving. But my mother is persistent; odds are she would follow, even if I claimed theIntelligencerwas burning to the ground at that moment. I would know no peace.”
He dined with his mother every Sunday. Bathsheba’s mother had died nearly ten years ago. A wistful smile curved her lips, and she was glad he couldn’t see it. “So you fled.”
“For my own preservation,” he agreed. “It took me twenty years to realize it, but my mother always gets her way. She looks harmless and sweet, but she’s relentless. Kings would quail before her. My brother and I had no chance, but, being by far the cleverer of us, I escaped to St. John’s Wood.”
Her smile faded. “Danny used to sayIwas relentless,” she said in a low voice. “When he came home from the war.”
“I expect if you were, it was for his own good.”
“It was,” she agreed. “He needed it. But I felt like an awful scold.” She half turned her head. “I had to be, to save us both from being cast on the parish or thrown into the Fleet.”
“And you did, so you have nothing to regret.”
“Perhaps.” She hesitated. “I worried over what my parents would think. My mother would have wanted me to marry Henry the grocer, no matter how cold the marriage would have been. He’s a good man, you know, and it would have provided security.”
His arms tightened around her. “Rubbish. She would have wanted you to sell yourself into marital servitude? Even if she did, you had every right to reject that for yourself.”
“You think so?”
“Of course,” he said, sounding mildly surprised. “Why shouldn’t you? It is your life; it was your decision. If I’d followed what my father wanted me to do, I would be adding up columns in the bank office, with my brain withered away to nothing.”
Her eyes widened. “A banker?”
“Noxious, isn’t it?” His laugh rumbled deep in his chest. “I fled from the prospect as if the hangman were after me. But I do confess, if theIntelligencerhadn’t trafficked in so much gossip—my mother’s fascination—I’m sure she would have badgered me to follow his example. So in a way, I fended off both of them.”
