Chapter Fifteen

What is wrongwith this woman? Silas wondered angrily as he kissed her. She wasn't listening to him. Why did she refuse to accept that he was unable to provide her anything more than friendship? He had no heart to offer anymore. Not after the way it had been crushed to dust, pulverized by a woman who had never genuinely cared for him. And yet, in this moment, as Clara pressed her body against his in earnest, he couldn't for the life of him remember the shape of Cynthia's mouth, or even the exact color of her eyes.

Features that had once held such power over him had become fuzzy. It was increasingly difficult to recall every aspect of her face, especially since his wedding to Clara had taken place. It had been his own fault, he supposed. He hadn't had the time to wallow in his own misery anymore the way he had before he'd begun to share a bed with Clara.

His hands dropped her hips, wide and full beneath his strong grip. God save him from her curves. At night, after she'd fallen asleep curled onto her side, Silas's eye would roam over her sleeping form, a landscape of rolling hills and valleys bared for his touch. She would make the strangest sound when he touched her as she slept—a content, purring noise that always made him equal parts hard and envious. That she should be so responsive to his touch, even in sleep, undid him. That she could find such peace and pleasure bothered him.

An unfounded anger surged through him as he kissed her, pressing her body fully against the rough rock wall that encircled the garden. His hands found her wrists and pulled them up over her head as his tongue moved against hers, savoring the taste of her mouth. This was all he could give her—but he intended to give her so much that it overwhelmed her.

He crushed his body against hers, enjoying the gasp that dropped from her lips as she felt his length press against her. He could give her all the physical enjoyment her body could handle.

"This," he spoke, tearing his mouth from hers and leaning against her ear. "This has to be enough, Clara."

To his annoyance, she defiantly shook her head.

"No, Silas," she whispered back. "I want more."

"There is no more."

"There is," she said as she pressed her lips against his neck, making him shake with desire. "I want it all. I want all of you."

He silenced her again with his mouth, both furious and unrepentantly aroused by her persistence. She would have all of him, he thought savagely as he gathered her wrists against his palm. His other hand moved down her body, gripping her soft breasts beneath the see-through fabric of her chemise. Never in his life had he held such perfection. It made him want to worship her…but this wasn't meant to be a gentle coupling. Not when he had something to prove.

His hand moved down to the front of his breeches and with a quickness that seemed to surprise Clara, he released himself while he gathered her skirts up. Her eyes were on him, he could feel it as he bent his knees. Bringing both hands down to the bottom of her thighs he lifted her and in a swift, singular motion, pushed up into her.

Clara gasped, her eyes fluttering closed as her arms fell to his shoulders, holding onto his neck. Silas had to fight off the very real wave of emotions he felt in the moment. Awe at the beauty of her flushed cheeks, strands of wet hair plastered against her skin, her face the epitome of pleasure. Fear over the way she caused the broken parts inside of him to vibrate. Triumph at the knowledge that she was his completely.

No. He moved against her, roughly. He had believed Cynthia was wholly his once and she had destroyed him. Never again would he allow himself to trust a woman.

But damned if Clara didn't make him want to try.

She began to make the same soft, purr-like noise she made in her sleep, and the sound of it enraptured Silas. The wet warmth of her wrapped around him contracted and while he was moving with a definitive rhythm, he felt his control slip.

"Silas."

Her voice was filled with pleasure, her eyes remained closed as he moved. He pumped into her with increasingly harder strokes as he kissed the breath out of her mouth.

Her desire was his to master and yet at the same time, he felt entirely under her power. He would do anything, give anything to bring her to ecstasy. He was both her reverent servant and her dominant protector. The conflicting feelings flooded him, muddling his mind. If he thought too hard about what she actually meant to him he wouldn't be able to live with her anymore. He pushed those ideas from his mind. He had no intention of losing her.

"Silas, please," she begged softly as he pumped into her. "Deeper."

Silas nearly spent himself then and there at her request. His hands moved further back around her buttocks. Holding her in what he was sure was a painful grip, he pulled her fast and hard against him. Clara let out a broken sort of cry as she writhed against him. Silas couldn't stand it any longer and he slammed into her one last time before he exploded within her.

Operating on nothing more than base instinct, Silas bent his head to her shoulder, his teeth biting down on her smooth skin as he shook in the aftermath. Only after several moments did he notice the damage he had done—not just to her shoulder, but to her back where it had scraped against the rough-cut stones of the garden wall. With a bitter curse, he pulled himself from her and her legs dropped to the ground as his hands came up her back.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asked, worried.

"No," she said breathlessly. "Although I suspect you were trying to."

He scowled at her accusation.

"I shouldn't have taken you against the wall like that."

"I wasn't talking about the wall," Clara said, her gaze intent.

It was true that he had hoped to scare her off with his words, to pulverize whatever silly hope she had at breaking down his walls, but it seemed that plan had been doomed to failure. This stubborn, impossibly gentle, gorgeous woman seemed undeterred. Of course, that only frustrated Silas even more.

He steadied her shoulders before he took a step back.

"I wasn't lying, Clara. I can't love you."

The words felt hollow as they dropped from his mouth, but he knew they were true.

Didn't he?

"You don't have to," she said after a long moment, her unwavering eyes on him. "But could you let me love you?"

A strange lump seemed to grow in his throat as he stared at her. Why did she want to do something so dangerous? To love someone who didn't return the love was a misery he would never wish on anyone, not even his worst enemy. Especially Clara.

"No," he said decisively as he bent down to gather her dress.

To his surprise, Clara came forward, her short index finger poking him in the shoulder again. What was her obsession with poking him?

"Why not?" she asked, her tone no longer gentle and serene. He helped her dress in her wet gown. "Why are you so hellbent on being miserable forever?"

"I'm not hellbent—"

"Aren't you?" she asked as he buttoned her dress. "For God's sake, Silas, all I want to do is care for you, in the way a wife should care for her husband—"

"And I don't want you to get hurt," he said as he stalked away from her, back through the maze.

"Are you planning on hurting me?" she countered, causing him to spin around.

"No, never," he said, the sincerity of his declaration apparently lost on the incensed Clara.

"Well, the only way I could be hurt is by you. All I'm asking is that you let me love you. I don't see why I'm not permitted to try."

Silas shoved a hand through his wet hair as confusion and aggravation coursed through him. Was she being purposefully obtuse?

"Fine, do as you please," he said after several seconds of an internal struggle, continuing his walk.

He was glad he was walking ahead of her and couldn't see her reaction to his words. No matter what she did, he intended to hold firm to his resolve to keep her at arm's length. Otherwise he actually might hurt her. For god's sake, his love for Cynthia had nearly destroyed him. Love was a treacherous, soul crushing sort of thing and he wouldn't let Clara suffer it. He didn't have the working equipment to do so. He was a broken man and she needed to accept that.

"I will," she said once they reached the stone steps of the manse. "I love you, Silas Winters, and I shan't ever stop."

Silas froze in the doorway. The words sent a shock through him, as if he were standing next to a box of fireworks that had abruptly gone off without warning.

He turned and stared at her incredulously. She was determined, with her chin in the air, her mouth in a flat line and her eyes glowing, as if ready to argue her point.

"Why?" he asked after a deafening long time. "Why would you want to love someone like me?"

The heat in her glare diminished. She took a step towards him and her small hand reached out for his. His instincts told him to pull back, to refuse her intimacy, but he was frozen beneath her touch.

"Oh Silas," she said softly. "Why wouldn't I?"

He stared at her as if she spoke a different language. He couldn't comprehend why she was so set on having feelings for a broken man, but something within him rallied against his self-destructive behavior. Silas found that he wished he could be someone worthy of her troubles.

"I'm sorry, Silas. I've been trying so hard to be patient, to understand things that don't quite make sense to me—"

"What do you want to know?" he asked, his throat tight. He had no doubt that she wished to know more about the games he used to play with Cynthia.

He had sworn never to broach the topic to anyone. His relations with Cynthia had been too miserable, too embarrassing to speak of. But it was terribly hard to deny Clara anything, especially when she was so bull-headed and determined. She was ridiculous. Ridiculous and unnervingly persistent not to mention brave. To admit that she loved him, when she knew he would never, could never love her back…well, he found himself in awe of her bravery.

She deserved to at least know why he felt the way he did.

"Can we change first?" Clara asked, looking down at herself. "I'm worried we might catch a cold."

She folded her arms across her chest as she shivered and Silas frowned with worry. Damn him for having her outside, like some sort of animal.

"Hawkins!" he bellowed behind him.

Instantly the butler appeared.

"Yes, your grace?"

"Have the bath drawn and send several trays of food up to my room," he said. "Along with tea and a bottle of brandy."

"Very good, your grace," Hawkins said with a bow before disappearing.

"Come," Silas said, holding out a hand to Clara.

The shadow of a smile passed over her face as she took his hand. He didn't know what he'd done to deserve it, but he felt oddly pleased that he had caused it.

A half hour later, the storm continued to rage outside, but neither Clara nor Silas seemed aware. Tucked away in the warmth of their rooms, Clara sat in a thick, burgundy colored velvet nightrobe that belonged to Silas, with a black satin quilted pattern on the lapels. She had dressed in one of her nightgowns but had still been rather cold and asked him for something that she could wrap herself up in. He helped her tie it at her waist. It dragged beneath her feet as she crawled up into their bed while Silas, dressed in nothing more than a length of towel he had wrapped around himself once he got out of the bath, brought her a cup of tea with a liberal dose of brandy added.

"Are you warm?" he asked after she took a long, slow sip.

"I will be," she said cheerfully before her stare turned serious. This is it, he mused. She was going to ask him.

"Yes?" he asked, his tone slightly brittle.

"What happened between you two, Silas?" she asked. "What did she do to you?"

Silas chuckled, unsure what he found so amusing about her question. It all seemed rather ridiculous, he guessed as he sat on the bed, one leg bent on the edge while the other stayed on the floor. He wasn't sure how much he should tell her or even where to begin, but then he took a deep breath and decided to be as honest as possible.

"Cynthia and I were similar in many ways. When we were first introduced, we learned that our backgrounds were nearly identical. Cut from the same cloth, you could say," he started, tracing his finger along the end of the label of the bottle of brandy he held in his hands. "We both appreciated the arts, as well as languages, although I believe our shared interests ended there. We were both the offspring of dukes who had little care for their children, resulting in our being rich, bored, and lacking morals. That's not to say my father was a cruel or immoral man. He was simply preoccupied as any man of his position would be." His brow creased. "Cynthia's father was eager to marry her off, as she'd proven too spirited for his liking. I hadn't planned on marrying so early in my youth, but then I hadn't met her."

Silas's gaze lifted to Clara to see her reaction, but her face remained impassive so he continued.

"When we did meet, it was a surprising attraction. I was infatuated with her instantly, and she appeared to feel the same, but it wasn't an easy sort of courtship. Cynthia liked to play games," he said, his tone soft. "I did too."

"What sort of games?" Clara asked, her tone curious.

"Vile ones," he continued. "Ones that hurt people and played with their emotions. She would try and make me jealous so that I would react." Silas felt his throat tighten slightly, disliking his need to share these parts of himself with her. His eyes locked on hers. "And I would."

"What would you do?"

He shook his head, an unsteady breath escaping as he debated internally how much he should reveal to her. As he stared at her, unwavering and understanding, he felt another crack in his heart open.

"Punish her."

"Like you told me before. Where you would control her, restrain her."

"That too," Silas agreed. "But sometimes, I gave her what she really wanted—which was pain. Pain was her addiction and control was mine. It was always part of our little play. I allowed it for a time, to appease her, but she always wanted more. None of it was supposed to be real, or at least I didn't think it was real because I was so sure she and I were the same person." He frowned, not quite believing it anymore. "We were supposed to be two sides of the same coin."

"I'm not sure I understand," Clara said after a moment.

Silas exhaled, hesitant to proceed.

"I have…had…particular tastes in my youth," he said lowly, knowing full well that Clara would not understand. "There are times when pleasure and pain can be shared, to heighten certain feelings and reactions. I wasn't particularly fond of the pain aspect, but the control was intoxicating."

"Oh," she said, color rising to her cheeks. "Like when you, um… That is, I mean, when you…"

"When I held you down?" He finished her sentence. She blushed wildly and Silas felt both depraved and drawn to her. Lord how he loathed himself. "Yes, like that. But it wasn't enough. The pain I could manage to give wasn't enough. She wanted more."

"More?"

"Much more," he continued. "And she didn't care that I wasn't interested in it. She wanted me to hurt too." He glanced across the room, feeling odd. He was reluctant to tell her everything they had done, but the more he spoke the more he felt relieved. "I was foolish. I asked her to marry me in a desperate attempt to try and keep her. She accepted and we were wed."

"But not for long?"

"No," he said, standing up. He placed the brandy bottle on a side table. "Not a week after we returned from our honeymoon, we began to fight. At first, I tried to appease her, but she didn't like that. She didn't want me to make her happy. She wanted to argue. To continue the games that tormented us. She thrived on it."

Clara's brows knit together.

"She didn't want to be happy? But why?"

"As I said, the pain was her goal all along. It was why she enjoyed the arguments, the jealousy. That was what caused the disconnect between us. Once our game was played, I wanted peace, but she wanted torture. Constantly. And when I did not comply, she decided to do it on her own."

Clara was quiet and he could see on her face that she was confused. Lord, he hated himself for telling her these things.

"She found comfort outside our marital bed, at first to get a rise out of me. I was constantly enraged, furious and threatened to murder any men who had touched her. She enjoyed how rough I could be when I was staking my claim, but it was more than that. She reveled in my agony. My pain was for her consumption and even then, I was happy to provide it to her."

"Oh dear."

"And it didn't matter how many times she made a fool out of me. I was hopelessly in love with her. I would do anything for her. Except…"

Here it was.

"Except what?" Clara asked, her voice nearly a whisper.

Silas didn't want to look at Clara, but something forced him to turn. She was watching him with the gentlest and most understanding eyes he had ever witnessed. They unnerved him. Taking a deep breath, he continued.

"She wanted me to share her," he said lowly. "With one of her paramours." Silas's eyes shifted down, focusing on the edge of the bed, unwilling to see Clara's pity. He huffed, humorlessly. "To show you how far gone I was, I actually considered it, even though it went against my entire being. Maybe I even could have gone through with it if it had been a simple fantasy—achieved once and then forgotten. I was willing to do anything for her, as I told you. But what she wanted was something that exceeded even my limits."

"What did she want?"

"She wanted… She needed a full relationship with someone else. There was some sort of pit, I believe that she was trying to fill. I'm not sure what it was, but she insisted that she needed another man, another relationship as well as ours and I could not abide it." He took a deep breath before continuing. "When she told me this, I felt a break from her, from myself."

"Our fights got uglier. I tried to make accommodations, truly, but it seemed every inch I gave her, she would demand a mile and then throw it back in my face," he said lowly. "It was as if she were purposely trying to push me to the point where I'd shatter completely."

Silas flexed his hands as his eyes landed on a small, dark walnut vanity table tucked in the corner of the room. The memory of that last conversation filtered through his mind.

"This isn't working, Silas. You can't make me happy," Cynthia had said, sitting at the vanity in this very room. "This marriage was a mistake."

Silas had felt a bizarre mix of rage and misery course through him at her words.

"I've done everything to make you happy," he had hissed back at her. "I've been made a fool of, mocked openly, all to appease you and your insatiable need to hurt me and ruin my name."

"You're being dramatic," she had said, standing up in a dismissive manner. "Why should I have to curb my tastes to appease you?"

"I don't ask that you curb them, only that you consider me before you act like a trollop."

"Consider you? Why must you always be at the forefront of my mind? Every action, every pleasure is sullied by the need of your approval." She sneered, her expression full of bitterness. "Every single fiber of my being is supposed to seek your approval and I hate it!"

"When have you ever sought out my approval?"

She shook her head, unwilling to answer as she caught sight of herself in the mirror.

"This is not what I wanted. I never should have married you."

"I had hoped that we would settle—"

"Settle all you want, Silas. I won't be here for it. I want a divorce."

He had sensed a break coming for some time, the blood in his veins had turned to ice. He had never actually expected to divorce anyone. It was practically unheard of, even for the wealthy. But she had been determined to push him into it. And what Cynthia wanted, she always got—sooner or later.

He shook his head as if to brush off the memories. Turning back to Clara, he saw her patient face watching him.

"I should have known better. I take full responsibility for the collapse of that marriage."

"Oh, but how could you?" Clara asked, standing up. "It wasn't your fault that it didn't work out."

"It didn't succeed because of me either," he said shaking his head. "Cynthia was not someone who would ever be content with the sort of conventional relationship I wanted to give her. I was a fool to think we could be happy together—but I paid for my arrogance with years of lies and betrayals. Shame has been my only companion for the past year. How could I have let her get away with such things? It was why I had planned on remaining alone after our divorce." He glanced at her. "I didn't want to share my miserable self with anyone, to plague another human being with my desolation."

"Then why did you propose to me?"

Guilt washed over him as his gaze dropped.

"I suppose, in a moment of selfishness, I wanted to keep you."

"Because I help with your anxiety? Or was it something else?"

Silas swallowed as he looked at her, unsure how much to reveal. Clara came towards him tentatively. Her hands raised and she touched his chest. He felt his heart begin to beat faster beneath her fingertips.

"You shouldn't feel any shame, Silas," she said, allowing her last question to go unanswered. "You're only guilty of trying to appease your wife. A wife who didn't have any idea how to react to the sort of support you gave her," Clara said. "She was the luckiest woman in the world and she squandered her good fortune. And you—"

"And me?"

"And you," she repeated, coming closer, her hand moving over his cheek. "You should forgive yourself. Your only crime was loving her."

Silas looked down at his wife, rather captivated by her words. No one had ever told him to forgive himself. The few friends he had left had disparaged Cynthia as a wicked harlot. His mother and sister had blamed him for his inability to keep his marriage together. All of London thought he was a scoundrel.

Everyone except Clara.

"I don't want to hurt you, Clara." His hands moved over hers. "It's why my friendship is all I can give you. It's why I can't accept…"

To her credit, Clara didn't weep or argue. Instead, she only squeezed her fingers around his.

"Shhh, Silas. It's all right," she said softly, her expression hopeful. Her hand pulled his to her chest and placed his fingers over her heart. "It will be all right."

Silas felt a snap within him, as if a steel band had broken from around his heart. She was wrong. It wasn't all right. Clara didn't deserve his excuses and if he were a better man, he would feel guilty for stealing her chances of a loving marriage away from her, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. Nothing would be enough to heal him, but he wouldn't bring himself to squash her optimism. Without realizing it, his arms went round her.

"Very well," he heard himself say. "Do as you please."

The smile she gave him made his stomach do an odd sort of flip. She was so happy in that moment. His shoulders, that were so tense the entire time he told her his history with Cynthia, relaxed and he felt as if a weight had been permanently lifted. Like a ghost had gone out of him.

Leaning forward, he kissed her. Almost instantly, her arms were wrapped around his shoulders. He tugged her towards him. Leaning on the leg that hung off the bed, he maneuvered her off the mattress and into a standing position, his mouth on hers the entire time.

She pulled away for a moment, confused.

"What are you doing?"

"Showing you what the mirrors are for," he whispered against her mouth as he turned her around to face the largest one that hung on the opposite wall.

"Oh."

His hand moved over her shoulders, pushing down the robe to reveal her breasts. His eyes locked on her reflection as her mouth opened. The shock in her gaze sent a jolt of yearning through him and as his hands came up around her, he waited for her to protest.

But Clara wouldn't stop him and the same, terrible urge to control bubbled up within him. Why is she so perfect? he wondered as he kissed down her neck. His teeth grazed over the soft skin of her shoulder and he bit down again, not as hard as he had in the garden, but enough to elicit a response. And yet she still remained unfazed. Her grey-green eyes filled with challenge and he knew she was daring him.

Lord above, he thought miserably. This woman will be the death of me.