Page 71 of A Sense of Fate
He snaked a strong arm around her neck and pulled her face up to meet his. His eyes glowed with intensity as he slowly and firmly covered her lips in a deep, drugging kiss that robbed Flora of her senses.
‘I don’t want you for my mistress, my darling,’ he said, unguarded passion in his expression when he finally let her up for air. ‘I want you for my wife.’
Chapter Sixteen
Archie cursed the interruption when Pawson loudly cleared his throat outside the door. Flora removed herself from the edge of his bed, her expression stunned.
‘Soup,’ Pawson said. ‘Beatrice’s orders.’
‘I will leave you to feed the grumpy patient,’ Flora said, gathering her wits. ‘I think he must have bumped his head when he fell. He’s talking complete nonsense.’
‘Not much change there then,’ Pawson replied cheerfully.
‘You will have to stay here tonight, Archie. We’ll keep cooling that leg, and you should be well enough to return to Felsham Hall in the morning.’ Her words came out fast, running together, and she seemed more interested in looking at Pawson that she did at him. Small wonder. He’d declared himself all wrong. ‘I must check on Melanie, but I’ll call in and change that dressing later. He’s strained the muscles and set himself back,’ she explained to Pawson, ’but he’ll recover. Probably.’
‘Probably?’ But Archie’s question was addressed to the door as it closed behind the woman whom he loved to distraction and whom he had just proposed to in the clumsiest possible way. No wonder she couldn’t leave the room fast enough.
Archie drank his soup, then closed his eyes to avoid conversation with Pawson.
When he opened them again it was dark but for one low lamp and he was alone in the room—or so he thought.
‘Ah, you’re awake.’ Flora rose gracefully from a chair in the corner of the room. The lamp was behind her, illuminating hair that fell to her waist in the absence of the pins that usually held it. Flora herself was dressed in a flimsy robe over her night attire. ‘How do you feel?’
‘What time is it?’
‘Past midnight. Everyone else is asleep. I sent Pawson to his bed and said I would watch over you for a while.’
‘I don’t need watching over.’
‘Stop being so disagreeable and do as you’re told for once.’ Flora smiled as she walked towards the bed, adjusted the cover that someone had thrown over him and perched on the edge of the mattress. ‘How’s the leg?’
‘Stiff, but I’ve endured worse.’
‘Melanie seems none the worse for wear. She’s full of questions, of course, but I’m not sure what to tell her about Papa.’
‘Leave it until after I’ve spoken to Conrad. Once we know more, we can decide how much we should reveal to her. I take it he still lives. I appear to have disabled him as he once disabled me. Ironic, isn’t it?’
An awkward silence spread between them.
‘Flora, I—’
‘Archie,’ she said at the same time.
They both stopped speaking, looked at one another and the tension dissipated.
‘I’m sorry, darling. My proposal wasn’t very romantic and you deserved better. Much better. It’s just that you took me by surprise, and to be honest I was ashamed to think that your opinion of me was so low.’ He waved a hand to stop her from interrupting. ‘What you know of my younger days entitles you to that opinion, but men change. We sow our wild oats because we can. We are arrogant and privileged—Conrad was right about that, if nothing else. The point I’m trying to make is that I love you.’ He took her hand in a firm grasp. ‘I have loved you almost since I first met you and saw the manner in which you stood up to the countess and brought her back to life. She came to respect you and you gave her something to live for. She was not a lady whose respect was easily won. I felt insanely jealous because I thought that Luke…Anyway, I know you need time to adjust, that your independence means so much to you…’
‘Oh, do be quiet, Archie.’ She smiled at him and bent to kiss his lips. ‘I feel the exact same way about you. Paul was always saying that when one meets one’s soulmate, marriage—’
‘Is bliss,’ they finished together, ‘rather than a gaol sentence.’
‘It’s just that…well, I’m hardly marchioness material.’
Archie laughed. ‘I beg to differ.’
‘Seriously, Archie, if Papa’s activities are exposed, and I am sure you intend to expose them—’
‘Sorry, my sweet, but if he’s doing what I think he is, what Conrad’s brother suspects them of being involved in, then I have no choice.’
