Part of him wanted to protest that surely she could make the one small sacrifice that would allow them to be together? She could wear breeches under her gowns, perhaps, if she was so fond of them. She was wearing a dress today to allow her to be with Miss Selby; could she not do so for him?
But he knew it wasn’t fair to ask; there was a difference between the span of two weeks versus the rest of her life.
Could he, the Marquess of Pembroke, have a wife who dressed—nay, lived—as a man? Not if he wanted to be respectable, he couldn’t. He would be quite cast out from decent society. The gossip would last the rest of his life, and likely longer. With this one choice, he’d bring himself lower than his father ever had been.
Robin was avoiding his gaze, instead resolutely focusing her attention on a chicken who was getting caught in her skirts. He bent and picked up the animal. With his other hand he tipped her face up to his own, and pressed a kiss onto her cheek. The chicken squawked anxiously and hopped to the ground. “Quite right,” he said. “I’ll never ask you to wear a gown.” It felt like a small concession, really, if it allowed him to have her by his side.
“I have my own suggestion,” she said. The sun glinted off her hair, turning it to ribbons of gold and bronze. She had done something with combs and pins to disguise the shorter length, but a strand had come loose. He reached out to tuck it behind her ear, but she stepped back. “We go on as we did in London,” she said. “I carry on as Robert Selby, we spend as much time together as we please. You hire me on as your secretary if—”
“I don’t want a secretary,” he protested, taking one of her hands and pulling her to him. “I want a wife. And what of Clifton? Is he to continue to be deprived of his property?”
“I don’t give a damn about him or his property. He can rot. Fenshawe can rot.”
“I don’t think you mean that, Robin. It would weigh on you. Anything we had would be tainted by the wrong we had done.”
She let out a sob. “I know that. I do. But what else is there? All I want is you, Alistair.”
He ought to agree. He wanted to agree, to simply say that he felt the same way. He could take her in his arms and kiss her and everything would be right. “I won’t make you my mistress.”
“Mistress! Ha!” She tugged her hand out of his grasp. “Is that what you consider me presently? Your mistress? Mistress makes it sound like there’s something sordid about it.”
He had been so reasonable, so very calm, during this conversation. But he felt his control slipping out of his grasp and being replaced by a seething, simmering rage. “There would be plenty sordid about it, believe me. My father—”
“He loved Mrs. Allenby.”
He gritted his teeth. “Hear me now, Charity.” He didn’t know why he resorted to her proper name, but it felt stiff and dishonest on his tongue. “I will not make a Mrs. Allenby out of you, and I will not follow my father’s example.”
“So proud, so fastidious,” she said mockingly.
“I will not sire any bastards on you.”
She sucked in a breath. “Watch yourself, Alistair. I’m likely a bastard.”
“Which is precisely why I should have thought you’d know better than to let your own child suffer that fate. Any child of mine will be born with my name and protection, and that’s final.”
“That didn’t bother you when we were fucking in your bedchamber or against the wall of my study, did it now?”
“I was careful,” he ground out. “But do you think we’d always be so lucky? Children would be inevitable.” A thought occurred to him. He stepped towards her, reaching out. “Are you saying that you think you might be—”
“God, no. Don’t you think I would have told you at the outset?” She seemed appalled, offended. Then, more gently, “No, there’s no question of that.”
The mad twinge of disappointment he experienced was a reminder of why they couldn’t continue like this. Eventually he’d be buried deep inside her and the prospect of a child wouldn’t seem like such a bad idea. And then there would be another generation of de Lacey bastards.
“Then what, pray tell, would you have us do?” The words sounded as bitter as he felt.
Her chin was raised and her jaw was set but her eyes were watery. “I wish I knew. I don’t see a way for us to carry on.”
“I won’t accept it.”
“You can’t have everything your own way, Alistair.”
“Like hell I can’t. What I want—marriage, respectability for ourselves and our children, a fair distribution of your late husband’s property—is right. What you’re suggesting is utterly unreasonable.”
“Did it occur to you, even once, that your notions of respectability and justice don’t mean a thing to me? Those ideas have never done me any good, so why should I care? Can you even contemplate what it’s like to be a person your rules work against, Alistair?”
He opened his mouth to protest but she had already turned away.
Chapter Eighteen
She came to him that night. Alistair looked up from the second-rate supper he was sharing with Gilbert in the Duck and Dragon’s private parlor, and saw her enter.
She was once again wearing the men’s clothing he had given her, along with a wool cap that looked like she had stolen it from someone who could ill afford to lose a cap. She must have sneaked out of the farmhouse on some pretext. As he listened, she told the innkeeper some taradiddle about needing to deliver an urgent message to his lordship in the parlor.
There were so many layers of dishonesty in this performance that it was almost impossible to discern the kernel of truth nestled at its core. Surely he ought to disapprove of such rampant falsehood. Surely the fact that he didn’t disapprove was a very bad sign indeed.
Hell, he wasn’t even embarrassed that Gilbert was there to witness how eagerly he shot to his feet when he saw Robin at the door.
“Good evening, Miss—ah, I mean Mr. Selby,” Gilbert said, and went back to eating his soup.
Alistair wordlessly pulled out an empty chair next to his own.
She didn’t sit, though. She only pulled off her ratty wool cap and shook out her hair. “I needed to see you.”
And that was the kernel of truth. That was why none of the deceit mattered to him in the least—she had done what was necessary to put herself in the same room as him. And if that need to be together wasn’t honest, he didn’t know what was.
“Upstairs?” he asked, his mouth going dry.
Gilbert had to know what was going on, but he went on eating his soup, pretending to be deaf and dumb.
She gave him a quick, businesslike nod. He led the way to his bedchamber, trying to maintain a sedate pace while hearing Robin’s light step on the bare wood of the stairs behind him.
He stopped just inside the closed door, bracing his hand on the door frame behind Robin’s head. “Is this . . .” He needed to know. “Does this mean that you’re accepting my proposal?”
She shook her head.
He hadn’t thought so, but he had foolishly let himself hope, and now he was angry and disappointed. “Then what does it mean? I don’t think I’m very interested in a goodbye fuck, Charity.”
“Why does it have to mean anything?” Her smile was a tease, an illusion of happiness he couldn’t and wouldn’t share. “Can’t we just be together and pretend that things are all right? One last time?”
He leaned in, crowding her with his body. “That’s practically the definition of a goodbye fuck, my dear, and I find that I have no appetite for that sort of thing.” He could smell her hair soap and feel the heat of her breath on his jaw.
“I beg to differ,” she said, trailing her hand down his abdomen until it reached his hardening cock. “I think you’ve plenty of appetite for it.”
“Unfair, Robin,” he growled. Her touch was a mere whisper of a thing, but he had to stop himself from thrusting into her grip. He took hold of her wrist and held it tight. “What is it that you want from me tonight? Do yo
u think that a few moments of pleasure will delude me into thinking that continuing like this is anything other than folly?”
“I know that it won’t. I want to push everything to the side and have you while I can.”
She had said something like that before. Something about sweeping her worries aside and enjoying herself while she still could. At the time he hadn’t understood why she thought she was running out of time, but now he did. “What lies on the other side, Robin? For you, I mean.”
She shook her head, then made a sweeping motion with the hand he wasn’t holding, indicating that these were all the worries she didn’t want to be thinking of tonight.
Fine. If she wanted pleasure, he could give her that. If she wanted to break his heart more comprehensively than might otherwise have been the case, then so be it. His heart was hers to break.
He leaned forward and kissed the corner of her mouth, where her lips turned up in a small, brave smile.
He had her on the bed before he could think better of it, and she pulled him down on top of her, parting her legs so he could settle against her where they both needed it. Bowing his head, he took her mouth in a hard, punishing kiss. She seemed to understand, biting his lip and digging her fingertips into his shoulders. Not only pleasure, but also a little bit of pain.
He pulled off her cravat and opened her shirt and waistcoat. She was beautiful spread out beneath him, her creamy breasts bare beside the white linen of her shirt and the dark silk of her waistcoat. It was more erotic than any sight he had ever allowed himself to imagine. He sat back on his knees to better admire the sight. She was breathing heavily, her small but perfect breasts rising towards him with every inhalation. Reverently, he skimmed his hand down from her shoulder, cupping her breast, thumbing her nipple. A small sigh of satisfaction escaped her lips, and he felt his cock throb in response.
“I want to see you,” she said. “Take off your clothes.”
And so he did, drinking in her frankly appraising stare. Then he knelt between her legs and gave his cock a few leisurely strokes. “Any other requests?”
She eyed him for another long moment. “Now take off my clothes.”
He spent a good deal more time undressing her than he had himself, kissing all the more interesting parts of her as he exposed them. If this was to be their last time together, he wanted to lavish every attention on her. He wanted to memorize every inch of her, every curve and angle, the strong length of her thigh and the delicate bones of her wrist, storing up memories against a bleak and empty tomorrow. But that wasn’t how love worked. Love wasn’t a sum safely invested in the five percents. One couldn’t prevent future sorrow by capitalizing on present bliss. All he could do was have this moment, wring all the joy out of it, and then somehow continue after it was over.
He braced himself over her on one forearm and notched his cock at her entrance. He chased from his mind any thoughts of the future, concentrating instead on the purr of contentment she made as he slid into her inch by inch. She was wet and soft and tight as her body accommodated his. She was lithe and supple beneath him. She was his, goddammit, no matter what she thought. Even if they never did this again, she would always be his. Or at least he would be hers.
He rolled them over, so she could ride him and he could watch her. She sighed contentedly as she lowered herself onto him, but then moved her hips only slightly, rocking against him. She was chasing her own pleasure, he realized.
“Touch yourself,” he ordered, his voice hoarse. “Show me how you touch yourself when you’re alone. And we’ll both know that the next time you do it, you’ll wish you had my cock inside you.” He thrust up hard into her to drive home his point, and she groaned in pleasure.
Her mouth curved up in a conspiratorial smile as one of her hands drifted up her thigh to settle over the pale hair between her legs. Transfixed, he watched as she used one finger to lightly stroke herself, never faltering in her rhythmic riding of his cock.
He propped himself up on his elbows to get a better look, then to take her breast in his mouth.
“Yes,” she cried. She was lost to pleasure now, her eyes half-closed, her mouth parted slightly. He settled his hands on her hips, his fingers sinking into the soft skin of her backside, as he felt her work her body onto his.
She was using him, he realized. She was using his body as an instrument of pleasure, and he loved it. He wrapped his fingers around the posts of the headboard and let her have her way with him.
Charity could have spent all night like this, side by side on a lumpy mattress, tracing his long lean muscles, toying with the dark hair that curled on his chest.
But she had to leave. That was the entire point.
“Just think,” he murmured, his voice thick with sleep and satisfaction. “I’ve been trying so hard these last few days not to compromise you.”
He had? “Whatever for? That ship sailed a long time ago.” She had never had a reputation and it had never bothered her one jot.
“Because I wanted you to know that when I offered to marry you, it wouldn’t be to save your reputation.”
She nearly laughed, but then realized he was serious. It wasn’t that he thought she needed her reputation protected, but that he didn’t want her to think that his proposal was a sop to convention. “Thank you,” she said.
“Besides, your reputation is unexceptionable. You’re a respectable widow as well as the future Lady Pembroke.”
“Alistair . . .” she cautioned. He had to be deranged to still believe that was possible.
“Well, you are.” He rolled over onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. “We’re going to be married, as soon as I can figure out how.”
She shook her head. “I love you,” she said, and tried not to make it sound like an apology.
“I’ve never doubted it. Or, rather, I shouldn’t have. From the moment you rushed to see me when I asked for you.”
She knew he was talking about the day he summoned her to Pembroke House, only to accuse her of having lied about his father being Louisa’s godfather. He had been better off then—safer, less trusting, his heart wrapped up right and tight in layers of pride and dignity. She had ruined that, and he still didn’t know it. She winced at the pain he’d feel when she was gone. “I came to you because I thought you were in trouble,” she protested. “I thought you needed me.”
“I did need you.” He drew her against him.
“You needed nothing of the sort,” she murmured into his shoulder. “Your life was peaceful before you met me, and now look at you.”
“Happy, sated, and warm with the person I love?”
She pulled away and propped herself up on her elbow to look down at him. “Careening headlong into heartbreak. In a shabby inn, just having fornicated with a confidence artist. About to consent to your brother’s marrying a penniless nobody.”
He sighed. “I see that I’m going to have to spell this out for you. In order, then.” He was using his most aristocratic voice, the one he probably trotted out in the House of Lords. “I’m not concerned with heartbreak, since I take our eventual marriage as a foregone conclusion.” When she tried to look away, he took her chin in his hand and tipped her face towards his, planting a soft kiss on her mouth. “This inn is horrible, I’ll grant you that. I certainly would never have stayed anyplace half so shabby if not for its proximity to you. That’s only one of the many ways you’ve expanded my horizons.” Another kiss, this one more lingering. “As to your being a confidence artist, I think not. You’re not deceiving anyone for profit, except the cousin, and we’ll figure out a way to make things right for him. Lastly, Gilbert’s affairs are his own concern.”
She wasn’t convinced. She didn’t even think he was convinced. He’d wake up tomorrow, and if not tomorrow then one day next month or next year, and realize what a narrow escape he had made. He was quite mad with love, she understood. Someday she’d be able to look back and feel appropriately tender about this, she’d revel in what it mean
t to have been loved by such a man, such a good man. But now she knew she had to think clearly enough for both of them, or they’d be shackled together for a lifetime of resentment.
He rolled on top of her, nudging her legs apart with his knee. “Have you no counterargument, then?” he said into her ear.
“Time is my counterargument,” she murmured as he kissed her neck.
“And this,” he said hoarsely, fitting himself into her, “is mine.”
She slipped out of his room as soon as he fell asleep, dressing as well as she could in the dark and taking care not to wake him. It was too dark to aspire to anything neater than mere decency, so she hoped that she wouldn’t attract any attention on her way out of the inn. One look at her disheveled state would give rise to too many questions about what she had been doing in Lord Pembroke’s room.
Her borrowed wool cap pulled low over her eyes, she made her way discreetly through the inn’s taproom. She had nearly made it to the door when she felt a hand on her arm.
“Mr. Selby, a moment of your time, please.”
It was Gilbert, and his expression was so solemn she was momentarily overwhelmed by his resemblance to his older brother.
“Of course,” she said. “Outside, perhaps. You can walk me back.”
He nodded, too much the gentleman to refuse a lady’s request for accompaniment, whatever she might be dressed like. Once there was nobody about to overhear them, he spoke again. “Are you going to marry him?”
“No.”
Gilbert didn’t bother hiding his groan of dismay. “I had my hopes up, you know. He’s always on his damned high horse and I thought that loving a woman who, if you’ll excuse my saying so, isn’t precisely who one would expect him to marry, would do him a great deal of good. Take him down a notch.”
She hid a smile. “Which might make him more accepting of you and Louisa, you mean?”
“Ah, maybe a little bit of that, too. But, you know, I did tell you a while ago that he’s a good deal more pleasant when you’re around. That was before I realized that the two of you were, ah . . .” He fumbled for words. “Before I realized precisely how things stood between the two of you, as it were.”
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