Page 57 of The Trick of the Treasure
“I know who you are now. I’m not sure I care what you have done in the past.”
“But the past made us both. And mine…affects our future. I think you have harbored illusions about me. First that I was this hardheaded, scheming siren of a whore constantly enrichingmyself via men. Then that I am some kind of chaste saint, bent only on charity. Neither of those are me.”
His voice remained steady. “I may be besotted, but I am not so shallow as to believe either of those portraits.”
“I am not pure. How could I be? I wasn’t taken advantage of. I did it for money the first time, to buy something trivial I can’t even remember now. It was horrible. It was always horrible through the few I endured at the beginning. But I discovered men would pay dearly. Plus, I stole from them. I let them walk into danger. I picked pockets. I did everything imaginable to make money and get out.”
“And you did,” he said.
He didn’t want to hear it, but he was listening. So unplanned confessions spilled out, the things she had refused to remember and the few things she had been proud of. Or, at least, some of them. When she stopped talking, he was still holding her hand in a tight grip.
There were shadows in his dark, unfathomable eyes, but she could find no disgust there, only pity and tenderness that were almost equally unbearable.
“You see the point, Solomon?” she said anxiously. “I don’t know what you expect of me, but I am not the pure wife you deserve. Nor am I the skilled lover men dream of. I will lie in your bed because I love you, not because I am capable of giving or receiving the pleasures of fantasy. I am only a shrewd businesswoman with a sordid past and a kind-ish heart.”
“Stop, Constance,” he said gently. “There was never anyonlyabout you. We all do what we have to in order to survive.” He brought up his free hand and touched her cheek, her lips. “I guessed most of this, you know, or something very similar, once I truly began to see you. Your strength, your will, is part of whom I love. As for the skills you speak of—they are not what Iwant or expect. I want only what you give freely. Love, passion, companionship.”
Now it was she who gripped too tightly. “And if there is no passion?”
“Oh, there is,” he whispered, and kissed her mouth as if he would never leave it. The only man who had ever stirred her like this…
“Do I love you because you make me feel like this?” she murmured against his lips. “Or do I feel like this because I love you?”
“Does it matter?” he asked, and claimed her lips once more, holding her head, caressing her nape.
“No,” she whispered, and surrender was sweet.God, I love this man. I would do anything to make him happy…
Though his caresses were bolder and her willingness, her eagerness, must have been all too apparent, he drew back, leaving her panting and bewildered. His own breathing was ragged.
“This is what I want,” he said, his voice harsh with suppressed lust, which was curiously thrilling. “All of you.”
“I am yours.”
He uttered a sound that was half laughter and half groan. “Sweetheart, don’t say that to me now. This is hard enough. But we will do this properly.”
It struck her, finally, that she had the power to change his mind. To seduce him beyond the point of no return. And for the first time in her life, she wanted to. He must have seen it in her eyes, for flames flared suddenly through the clouds of desire in his eyes.
He swallowed. More humbly, he said, “If that is what we both want.”
Constance, who was so befuddled that she no longer knew what she wanted, began to laugh, and he grinned back and helped her re-pin her hair and straighten her clothes.
After all, the carriage would call for her in less than half an hour.
Chapter Twelve
Sydney flung hisovercoat over his arm and picked up his silk hat from the bed. Looking forward to his evening, he was whistling to himself, and when the knock sounded at his door, he cheerily called, “Come in!”
His mother entered. “Oh, you’re going out,” she said. She did not sound disapproving, though she did, annoyingly, close the door as though she intended to stay.
“I’m meeting Ben Devine,” he said. “I don’t want to keep him waiting.”
“Of course not. Are you meeting him to keep him away from Jemimah? Or because you still have anything in common?”
“Dash it, Mama, he’s a friend. Why should it have anything to do with Jemimah?”
“I thought you might want to please your father.”
“Why on earth would I want to do that?”
