Chapter Twenty-One

Louisa dressed quickly, not allowing herself to tarry as she found the articles of clothing from where they had been dropped to the floor.

Henry remained in the bed, watching her with hooded eyes. It was nearly time for dinner, which they would both be expected to attend, and she had no time to waste on affection. Already, she had stayed too long.

"That's it, then?" he asked, rolling and standing. He was not ashamed of his nakedness, she could say that for him, although there was hardly any reason for him to be. His body was magnificent, not overly bulky but finely honed. It was a body accustomed to being used, and for a moment she wondered what it must be like to have returned to England where there was nothing for him to do but hang on Society's whim.

Her gaze returned to his face, where he was still watching her. His expression was tight, restrained, as though he, too, was wary of showing her too much.

What a pair they were.

For a moment, she ached at the thought of what they had lost.

"Louisa," he said. His throat worked. "Don't leave like this."

"We will be expected for dinner soon," she said, casting a glance at the window, where the late afternoon sun was barely peeking over the trees. "And I must transcribe the letters and return them."

He frowned as though he wanted to say something else, but settled for, "Let me return them."

She huffed impatiently. "How many times must I tell you? I can handle myself."

"If he finds you in his bedchamber, how will he react? And for you to come here unseen is more of a task than it is for me." He came closer. "Allow me to do it. What will he do to me? I doubt he has a gun on his person, and if one of us were to be shot, I had rather it was me."

Doing her best to ignore him, she wiggled into her chemise. This was more like the arrangements she was familiar with; they shared their pleasure and then one party left. The difference was the feeling in her chest, the temptation to stay and kiss him one last time. Make love to him one last time.

Perhaps he had done so willingly, but he had broken her vows for her. And she had deprived Miss Winton of a husband dedicated to waiting for their wedding night. No matter that such a man was a rarity for any lady; she had been the one to take that away.

Her nose stung.

Yet there was no other avenue for them. She had always been determined not to marry after Bolton, and Henry . . . for all she had always been drawn to him, no matter how many times he had touched her heart, there was still the matter of the hurt lying between then.

And her barrenness.

This was for the best.

"You have already helped me enough with Knight," she said, keeping the emotion from her voice. "I need no more assistance."

"Don't be so stubborn, Louisa." His voice was low and he caught her cheek as she emerged from her chemise, turning her face to his. "And don't run from me. We should discuss this."

"There's nothing to discuss."

He flinched. "You're just going to walk out of here with the letters?"

"Yes," she said, donning her stays next and keeping her face averted. "While, admittedly, there is more two can do in bed, I—"

"You know that's not what I meant." He spun her around so she was looking at him again, in all his naked glory.

"Put on a shirt," she said.

"Marry me," he said.

"I—" Mouth open, she gazed at him as though waiting for a sign this was all a joke in very bad taste. "That was what this was about?"

"This?"

"You allowed me to seduce you so I would feel obligated to marry you afterwards." She took a step back from him, too confused to articulate herself properly. "I thought I made myself perfectly plain before this ever begun. I have no intention of marrying."

"That was before," he started, but she held up a hand.

"Did you truly think that it changes anything? Have you forgotten what I am?"

His gaze held hers steadily, but there was a flare of hurt there, too, as though he had genuinely imagined that this would have changed things for her. That all ills would have been resolved by a little bedsport. No doubt he believed he could pleasure her into forgiveness.

The hurt was blinding, crushing her lungs. That she could have been so deceived in him; that he had not taken her word at face value.

"My fortune," she said, understanding coming to her in a lightning bolt. "Is this what this is about?"

His hand moved to the curve of her jaw again, fingers tight and possessive, his thumb on her chin, holding her in place. "I care for you," he said.

"You cared for me before, if you recall." She jerked free of his hand. "Tell me something, Henry. If I were poor, if I were as poor as the day I asked you to marry me, would you be asking this now?"

His jaw snapped shut, nostrils flaring. The silence before his next words told her all she needed to know, and she shook her head. As always, his duty towards his family was his primary concern. No doubt his ‘affection' for her was a mere bonus in addition to her fortune, which was her primary appeal.

As it had been since the day Bolton died.

With every other gentleman who had pursued her for her fortune, it had made no difference. With Henry, it made every difference.

"I told you I have no intention of marrying you," she said, her voice thick, taking another step away from him. "I am not some innocent you can seduce into marriage, and if you hoped that my guilt over inducing you to break your vow would lead me to matrimony, then you are very much mistaken." She glanced down at where he was standing beside her discarded dress. "My dress, if you please."

For the longest time, his gaze held hers, probing, as though he was trying to find the truth behind her words. As though he could not quite believe what he was hearing.

"If I were merely looking for a fortune, I would not have played this game with you," he said, so low she could barely hear him.

"No? Miss Winton's dowry is considerable, but it hardly compares. I have forty thousand a year. What do you say to that ? Are you more tempted by me than ever?" She made a dismissive gesture. "My dress, Henry. I would like to leave."

Eyes still on her, he bent and picked up her dress and came closer, one step at a time. "I chose to be with you because I wanted to," he told her, fingers brushing hers as he came closer. She snatched the dress from him and stepped in it, drawing it up her body, her hands shaking. "Not because of any ulterior motive."

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

"And now this proposal—if one can call it that. It has nothing to do with my fortune? Nothing to do with your foolish hope that the intimacy might propel me into your arms? Or perhaps you hoped I would fear talk from our absence all afternoon?" She shook her head and turned her back to him so he could do up her dress. "I am not ruined, Henry. Not by you."

He gathered her loose hair and moved it over her shoulder. Seconds later, she felt the press of his lips against her neck, and she closed her eyes. "I thought," he said, the pain in his voice more evident now, "that it might have meant something to you, as it did to me."

Even now, lost in the anger and resentment that had followed her for nine years, she could admit that he cared for her. But his reasoning, his timing—his assumption that she would be coerced into marriage when she had explicitly said she would not—merely stoked her temper.

Even if she had not been barren, even if she could have made him the perfect little wife, she would not have accepted a proposal such as this, when she had been so very plain about her intentions. He should have known better than to ask.

"Oh," she said, and gave a hard, angry laugh. "Well, I admit it was satisfying. I would not object if you wished to be my lover. Do you want to keep me as your mistress?"

He was silent behind her, and the next thing she knew, he was lacing up her dress.

Duty had been the cornerstone of Henry's life from the moment he had understood what he had been born into. He understood the need to uphold it the way the stars understand they cannot outshine the sun.

And yet when he had asked Louisa to marry him, he had not been thinking of his obligation to his family, or her fortune, or of anything but the fact he did not think he could bear to let her go now. Their joining had been a gift and a curse; before, he had wanted without knowing precisely what it was he was being denied, and he had been ignorant of the blessing that was.

The truth was, he had acted on instinct; his body had asked her before his mind had a chance to agree. The proposal was a mistake blurted at the worst possible moment. And now she hated him all over again, shaking with anger under his fingers as he loosely and poorly laced her dress.

"Louisa," he said in a desperate attempt to salvage the situation. "When I asked you . . . That was not what I meant."

"No?" Her brow rose. "How perfectly flattering."

"For God's sake." He strode away from her, needing the space to think. His body was still overwhelmed by the torrent of sensation it had experienced, and it was at odds with the peculiar pain in his heart. "I was speaking of the method, not . . . I have every wish to marry you, but I had not intended to ask you then."

"You need not explain yourself," she said, turning to the full-size mirror and applying herself to her hair. "I understand perfectly, but if you were caught up with passion, then time should put that to rights."

He should have known better than to blurt out a proposal when she was vulnerable, when they were both naked. She was like a nervous horse, liable to bolt from any hint of affection, no matter how much she had shown herself to want it.

Then again, what did he know? Perhaps she was like that with all her lovers, and he had become another name on a long list. The thought was excruciating.

"It was not merely passion," he said.

Her hands paused. She was delectable, brown hair tumbling about her shoulders despite her attempts to pin it up. Although she was wearing her dress, she looked rumpled, ravished, and so utterly exquisite that he could have pulled her to the bed. Taken her again. His hunger for her was insatiable.

He did not know how he could learn to live without her now he had given her everything.

He drew in a breath. "How could you think I have ever wanted anything else?"

Her green eyes met his, the feeling in his gut a tug like a fish on a hook, before she returned to her appearance. "You should think of Miss Winton," she said, and the tug in his gut turned into a blow.

Miss Winton.

Over the past few days, he had done his duty in singling her out and making conversation. She was a lovely girl, one whom he could imagine being friends with. If they were to marry, they would have a harmonious, if uninspiring, existence. It was an existence he had been resigned to—until this with Louisa, where she had not so much as crossed his mind.

He was a blackguard.

He could not do it.

"Miss Winton," he whispered hoarsely.

"I take it you forgot your betrothed while in here with me." She combed through her tangled curls. "Fear not, Henry. You are not the first."

His world rocked. Louisa would not have him; he could not have Miss Winton.

"I can't," he said, gripping a post on the bed. "I can't marry her."

Louisa's face twisted, and she whirled, the rawness in her expression almost frightening. "Is that how you think to compel me to agree to marry you? Because you will not succeed, I can assure you of that."

"I can't marry her," he repeated.

She advanced on him now, eyes blazing, her lips twisted in a snarl. "Is that how you intend to treat the poor girl?"

"There's no formal agreement between us—"

"What of your honour?" she flung at him. "What of the fact that she is a girl in her third or fourth Season whose marriage potential lowers with each year she is out? Do you truly believe she would rather be a spinster than a countess?"

"I had not thought you a proponent of marriage."

She gave a wild, angry little laugh. "Why, because I would not marry you? I have the luxury of choice, Henry. And I—" She broke off, swallowing whatever words she had been about to say. "I have my freedom and my independence. She has neither. You, too, are a better husband than many."

He scoffed at that. "Not good enough for you, evidently."

"I would not make you a proper wife."

"Is that the reason for your refusal?"

Her eyes sparked, and she gave him a little shove. "You asked me to forgive you for your role in my marriage. And I do not. I cannot. There is your reason."

He felt the words like claws in his chest. Something tore, and a dull feeling of pain settled through him. The kind he had felt once before, in a small house on Ryder Street, when he had first known what it was to have his heart broken.

Briefly, he wondered what damage it was doing and if he would ever recover, or if a man could die of it.

"And that is your final answer?" he asked, and he thought he caught a flicker of distress in her eyes, as though she could sense his pain and was sorry for it. Or, perhaps, because it echoed through her body, too.

But she inhaled and the expression vanished. "Yes," she said. "Marry Miss Winton and forget about me. Whatever it is you feel for me cannot continue forever."

Perhaps that was true, but it had endured this long. He could not imagine a world in which he did not love her.

"And if it persists?"

She shook her head. "It won't."

"But if it does, Louisa. What then?"

"Then you will have to live with it."

"And you?" he asked, although he already knew the answer; perhaps he had known it the instant he had kissed her, the moment he had pushed inside her, the moment he had held her in his arms after they had made love and felt as though she was slipping through his fingers like sand. "What will you do?"

She gathered her hair into a loose knot at the back of her head and picked her gloves up from the floor, straightening herself as she went. A lady once more.

"I will do what I have always done," she said. "I will secure my independence by any means possible, and I will endeavour to forget you."