“Don’t worry—it’s merely some merchants and their wives; even a couple of mere sea captains.”
His words were like a sharp slap. His careless tone and his refined, polished manner of speaking with its slightly condescending edge put a deeper meaning into the words “mere sea captains.”
She swept her gaze over his elegant, perfectly tailored evening clothes. That stiffly starched, intricately tied cravat. Oh, he was the most handsome man she’d ever seen—indeed, the most handsome man she’d ever even dreamed of seeing—yet, there was also no denying the aristocratic cut of his features. The force of his presence as a man born into wealth and social power. A man who took all the privileges of his station for granted.
She had forgotten that she sat here in clothes he had purchased, in a borrowed cloak.
She had forgotten that she was poor and her origins meager compared to his.
She compressed her lips. It didn’t matter. One careless moment on his part shouldn’t matter so much. She took several deep, deep breaths, trying to cool the heated emotions roiling within her.
But it did matter.
Very much so.
Words rushed to her lips. “How glibly you say that. Mere sea captains.”
On the last three words, she mocked his upper class, polished tone. She fiddled with the heart-shaped pendant on her necklace. The expensive piece of jewelry that no man in her life before, certainly never her father, could have afforded. The knowledge stung. “It’s most unfeeling of you to say so. My father was a ‘mere’ sea captain—as was his father before him.”
His face contorted into a pained frown. “I am sorry, sweetheart. My words were poorly chosen. I only meant that if you can handle congressmen, you can handle these people tonight.”
Despite his apology and words selected to soothe, she could feel his annoyance crackling on the air between them.
He turned to the window, opening the leather curtain with a flick of his hand.
Apparently, he considered the matter dismissed.
At his curtness, her chest tightened, forcing her to breathe slower for a moment. It had been one thing for him to have said such a thing at all. She’d been ready to forgive; she had just needed to vent her hurt feelings some. After all, she had her family pride the same as anyone else, right?
But he had just dismissed her feelings as unimportant.
Yes?
Oh, now she couldn’t forget! His words, his tone kept replaying in her mind.
Mere sea captains.
Her father had been a hardworking man. She had been proud of him, even though he was a mere sea captain. She had lost her mother early in her life; she had never known her. Her father had been all she’d had in her childhood. Now he was gone. Forever. But she was fiercely proud of the man he had been. As proud as Alex was of his fine family name or his grand mansion.
Mere sea captains.
Alex’s tone had spoken volumes—as though her father had been so beneath him socially, he simply hadn’t mattered.
Her chest grew tighter and tighter.
All right, so Alex had been the first gentleman, the first man from the better sort, that she’d known closely.
But Grandfather had been a learned scholar, a dedicated schoolteacher. How many minds had he nurtured and helped to grow? How many lives had he shaped for the better simply by his kind, patient example? Yet, Grandmother’s father had disowned her for marrying Grandfather, as though Grandfather were so far beneath the Fletchers. As though Grandfather were trash, his bloodline a contamination that the Fletchers could never, ever countenance. So Grandmother’s name had had to be stricken from the family Bible and her letters cast into the fire— unopened, unread.
Emily’s throat burned. Alex had proved himself to be no different from Grandmother’s father.
Hadn’t he?
Dalton or Fletcher, mighty families were all the same. Bloodlines meant everything. So then, what…
“What of me, Alex?” She heard the emotion in her shaking voice. She couldn’t help it.
He turned from the window. “What?”
His frown had deepened quite a bit. Oh, she had never seen him look so fearsome! His sharp look cut into her. Clearly, she wasn’t supposed to have continued this discussion.
Under that icy blue-gray stare, her belly quivered. Inside, she cringed away from the intensity of his emotion. But she forced herself to keep her chin high, to look him squarely in the eyes. “What of me? My blood is the same as my father’s. And my grandfather was a schoolmaster. That’s even lower yet than a mere sea captain, isn’t it?”
He stared at her. Was that a shade of wariness in his gaze now? “We have our differences. I don’t think it benefits either of us to dwell too long on them.”
“Why not? Why shouldn’t we be honest? If you—”
“Stop it.”
The hard, cold note in his voice froze her blood, rendered her unable to do more than gape at him.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, his tone still harder than she was accustomed to.
Oh, that he would ever speak to her like this!
“I was exactly correct.” She almost whispered the words, afraid to voice such a truth aloud, afraid of what it would mean once said. “There are deeper feelings here for you, deeper issues surrounding my origins.”
“What purpose can this discussion serve?” He spoke in a censuring tone, as though she were wrong for speaking of her own feelings, wrong for wanting to bring the matter out into the open.
She despised all his secrecy. His reluctance to speak of anything but the most surface, pleasant matters. She would give no quarter on this issue. None. “You are not comfortable with my lowly social status.”
The wary look returned in his eyes. “Emily, don’t.”
“No, let us pretend for a moment that you are not to visit with the lesser branch of your mother’s family but with the Daltons for tonight.”
“We’re not.”
“But let us imagine for a moment that we are. Would you have so easily suggested that I accompany you to the Daltons’?”
He compressed his lips for a moment. “Emily.” His voice was all the more steely for being somewhat hushed, as though he were struggling for control. “If my life had gone…Well, if it had gone as it should have—”
“Speak plainly,” she said.
“I am speaking plainly.”
“No, you’re being evasive, as always. When you say that if your life had gone as it should, do you really mean if you had not been taken into captivity in Algeria?” Her heart hammered as she asked this question. That she should dare to press him on his secrets shook her to her foundations. But she wouldn’t back down.
He stared at her evenly. “If my life had gone as it was intended to, I would have wed shortly after graduating from university and reaching my majority. I would have selected my bride from those ladies presented to me by my family. I would have been wed and a father by the time you were old enough to be of interest to me. I would have been settled, likely deeply into business and likely also a political career. There would have been no possibility for you and I to ever have loved each other then.”
Their was a note finality in his voice that put a hard lump in her stomach. “What can any of that matter to us now? What bearing does it have on the question I just asked you?”
“The only reason I was able to meet you as I did was because the normal course of my life had been altered. Altered by a chance event that I had no control over. However, this same event left me hollowed out, soulless. I am no fit husband for you.”
“So you have said before. What does that matter in the discussion of whether you look down on me for my lowly bloodline?”
“You are speaking of all of this as though I had rejected you as a marriage partner based on your father’s profession. Or your grandfather’s.”
“Isn’t that what you are saying?” Her voice shook, her whole body shook, now that she knew he did think less
of her because of her origins. She was fit to warm his bed, nothing more.
“No. I am simply saying that, if I had been the type of son who could have borne living with my father one more day, then I would have been the same kind of tail-between-the-legs puppy that James was—” Alex’s voice broke off as he laughed—a cold, cynical laugh that sent chills through her. His lip curled.
“Alex!” She gasped at the utter disgust on his face.
“Had I been the type of son who could have stayed here, I’d have never been a young man who could have stood my ground with that exacting old man and told him that I loved a tavern girl.” He laughed again, the same hard, cold laugh. “God, no.”
That bitter disgust underlying his mirth continued to send such chills through her, she didn’t know what to say.
His mirth faded and they were silent for a time.
Her stomach began to turn and fatigue swept through her. She sagged against the seat. She wasn’t entirely sure what she felt now. Just drained by this unexpected turn in their bond. She was tired.
And hungry, so hungry.
Weakness flooded her anew, her stomach gnawingly empty.
“None of this even matters.” His voice cut into her despondency. “We met as we did, a gentleman and a tavern wench.”
His voice held mocking amusement. It made her bristle. Energy rushed into her blood. Heated, angry energy. She jerked her spine straight and lifted her chin, opening her mouth as hot words rushed to the fore.
He held up a forestalling hand, waving her off. “I know, you weren’t really a tavern girl, you had not run away from your family. You were an innocent forced into a hard choice. But you and I would never have met any other way. You can see that, can’t you? The vast chasm between our social stations would have precluded it.”
“We would have met through Mr. Jefferson, at his house.”
“Indeed.” He looked at her then, as though she had just alighted into his carriage. Startled, a little in awe.
That look sent a ribbon of ill-ease winding through her insides as nothing had done yet this evening.
“I would never have touched you, had I first met you at Jefferson’s house. I would have taken you straight to Aunt Rachel and let her settle you. I would have written James a blank check and let him and Jefferson deal with you as they saw fit. I would have spent my nights visiting my various mistresses and never given you a second thought.”
His words stung like sand flung into her face. Her chest went tight with the pain of his dismissal, however fictional. His words painted a vivid picture of him, visiting the beds of a never-ending round of mistresses, each more beautiful and curvaceous than the last.
She was just a pitifully thin girl with a too-large nose. Of course, he was exactly right! Without Green’s intervention, Alex would never have given her a second glance—or thought.
She took a few uneven breaths, waiting for the hurt to ease.
He studied her with a considering look. “Not a very pretty truth, is it?”
“No.” She managed to choke out the word.
“You pressed this issue.”
“Of course,” she said, having recovered enough to reply in a clipped tone.
“Our very different social positions, the nature of our meeting at the Blue Duck…It has created the distressing situation of your ruined reputation. I must do my best to remedy that.”
Shock washed over her, causing her to suck in her breath. She gaped at him. Tingling fear rushed over her. “You have said before tonight that I needn’t worry too much over that matter.”
“You needn’t worry over it because I intend to do all that I can to fix the situation.”
“You sound so resentful,” she said, her voice now shaking with her renewed shock.
He had lied to her.
Lied to her.
Why had he lied to her?
Did it matter why? He had shown a willingness to lie to her. That was all that should matter.
“It’s my worry, not yours.” His tone remained clipped.
“Oh, I see,” she said, bristling at his assumption that she was a passive partner in this. Probably because she was just a girl from below stairs!
“You aren’t exactly helping me with the reformation of your reputation.”
He made it sound as though he were the victim—as though he had been the one misled. Disbelief filled her. “What?”
“Your habits.” He flashed her a look of pure accusation. “You don’t behave as a young lady should. Lying around naked in bed in the midst of the day, drinking to excess. You are entirely too wanton in your habits.”
“Am I?” she asked, stunned.
“You have proved far too great a temptation. And what’s worse, you know it. You relish the role of temptress, of pretend-mistress, when you’ve no business being any man’s mistress, pretend or otherwise.”
“You haven’t exactly suffered—or voiced a protest, until just this moment.”
“Yes, I have been weak to my own desires, my lusts.” Again, resentment flashed in his eyes. Perhaps even an edge of anger.
Resentment. Anger.
At her.
“Alex,” she said, turning away from him, unable to keep staring into his face. “I don’t think I like where this conversation is going.”
“I told you we have differences. And I also told you that it would serve no benefit to either of us to explore those differences too deeply.”
Yes, she had wanted the truth. She wanted to strip away his glib charm, his insistence on keeping to surface, pleasant topics.
Now she had been given what she’d wanted, only she didn’t like it any better than the other.
“You said that you loved me.” She gulped a breath. “Loved me.”
“And so I do.”
I do.
Present-tense. He loved her still? How then could he speak to her with such coldness in his tone? Such strain. Yes, his voice was strained. Heavy and strained.
The sound of that strain wound right into her. She felt his weariness as though it were her own.
Loving her was a strain for him.
What a horrid truth to hear!
A weight settled upon her heart and she took an uneven breath, trying to ease the feeling. “Must you say it like that?”
“Loving you is not easy.”
His words stuck her like a hundred nettles sprung suddenly into her chest. She caught her breath with a soft gasp. Nothing he might have said could have hurt like that. “You’re not the first to say that,” she managed to say in a whisper.
It had been Grandmother’s near-constant and most strident complaint about her. It was Emily’s most shameful flaw. It ached inside her like a gaping hole, a wound that could never be healed.
She was hard to love.
She wasn’t worth the terrible effort it took to love her. Suddenly, she wanted only to run, to hide herself away. If she was such a sore trial to love, then she wouldn’t expect anyone ever to love her!
She didn’t need anyone’s love.
She didn’t need anyone, for any reason. Not really. She could remain independent, never marry. Never force a man to spend a lifetime coping with her difficultness. Never force a child to be burdened with her as a mother, when her love would never be good enough. She would never hurt a child like that. She would never hurt any person like that.
Never inflict herself upon anyone ever again.
Ever.
“I wish you would make it easier on me.” His deep voice, more gentle now, cut into her wildly escalating emotions.
She jerked her gaze back to his and tried to focus on his features. But her vision seemed to have become a bit blurry. “Easier?”
Her voice echoed in her own ears, small, girlish.
“Easier for me to leave you alone.”
“You love me…” Now her voice sounded hoarse, scarcely recognizable as her own. She gulped against an ever increasing lump in her throat. “You love me, and you wish that you
did not?”
“Yes, that is about the extent of it.”
She whirled back to face the window. She couldn’t look at him now, not even if her life depended on it. She stared out at the night, her throat tight and burning. Her stomach twisting. She sniffled deeply and blinked hard. Heavens, she wouldn’t actually cry? No, she would never cry in front of him.
Not now.
He had told her not to press this matter between them.
She hadn’t listened. Hadn’t Grandmother declared that to be was one of the things that made her so difficult to love? Her inability to stop probing, to stop asking questions?
You are too intense by far, Emily. You demand too much from life and also from others. I try to give to you, yet you drain everything I have to give!
Grandmother’s voice echoed in her ears. Oh, now Alex knew the worst of her too, just like Grandmother had—he knew that she would push and push and demand and want too much.
You demand too much.
Too much.
The words went round and round in her mind. Accusing her.
She had pushed Alex too hard. Now things had been said, horrid things.
For long moments, there was nothing but the clatter of the carriage and the tears that threatened to overtake and shame her.
Then her seat squeaked and rocked with his weight as he drew closer to her.
“Emily.” His voice was gentle. Contrite. He stroked her cheek.
She wanted nothing more than to lean into that touch.
His beloved touch.
He loved her, yes, she saw it in his eyes. Felt it in the gentle intensity of his fingertips…But he wished he didn’t!
She glanced up into his gray-blue eyes. “Loving me is too great a strain. You wish you had never loved me. You wish to forget all about me.”
“Oh come, Emily, you must forgive me.”
That lump that had been lodged in her throat suddenly expanded. Choking off her voice. She could only stare back into those beguiling eyes. The eyes of the only man she believed she would ever—could ever—love.
He wished he didn’t love her.
Loving her was too difficult.
She sagged with the loss of all energy from her body.
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