“Oh, Penn.” He sighed, his voice as ragged as he suddenly appeared. All artifice for the world outside that door gone, he wrapped his arms around her in a vise she welcomed and abhorred. “I’ve come here for you. I’m here to laugh with you. Dance with you. Dine with you. No one else could make me so happy this Christmas as you.”
Appalled, she pushed backward. Putting inches between them, she heard his longing in his words. They were sweet balms she could claim to heal the wounds she’d suffered living without him. Married to others. Three others.
“We can be together here,” he urged her as he squeezed his fingers at her waist. “This time we can enjoy each other’s company.”
“Oh, Tain. Be reasonable.” She shook her head at the disastrous serendipity of their encounters. They’d met. Always by chance. But if he was married, then she was in mourning. Or if she was married, then he was in mourning. Their ill-timed syncopation was a comedy. If one could laugh at it. A tragedy. Never once had the world turned in their favor. So much so, she never believed they’d ever be together. His father had killed that possibility twelve years ago. “All we had were those brief encounters.”
“I recall each one,” he said as he tipped up her face and regarded her sadly. “Gunter’s the day you bought a pastry.”
“Lock and Company where you were purchasing a hat.” She did not suppress the smile that welled up inside her.
“The time your coach stuck in the mud in Piccadilly. I pulled you out and took you home.” He urged her close.
And she nestled against him. What a fool, She rested her head in the crook of his shoulder, so safe here, so serene. “And that July here in Brighton when we had tea in that tiny shop in the Lanes.”
“So many encounters, my darling.”
His endearment brought her back to her senses and she pushed him away. “Don’t.”
He stared at her. If she ever wondered how medieval marauders looked when they invaded England, she had no doubts now. He drew himself up to his magnificent height and peered at her with a hauteur that brooked no argument. “I’m here to learn if we might have more of a future than a few minutes in a coach or an afternoon’s tea.”
To fight his charms, she summoned the vow she’d made at her last poor husband’s graveside. “Trust me when I say we don’t.”
He met her adamancy with cool nonchalance. “How do you know if you won’t give me more time?”
“Because I am not meant for you. Nor you for me, Theo.”
At her use of his name, he softened. “Darling—”
“No.” She pressed the flat of her hand to his chest. “I’ve had three husbands and one thing I have learned about men is that there is nothing so enchanting as the woman a man thinks he cannot have. She becomes his ideal. His touchstone. His…siren. And she can lure him, reel him in and ruin him upon the rocks of reality. Once attained, she is no longer the lovely, the desirable, the infinite charm. She may well be the harpy, the witch, the devil he rues until his death.”
He raised his eyes to the ceiling. Seeking forbearance, was he? “You are none of those.”
The ping of china clanging together made them pause and stare at each other.
“Was that—?” he asked.
“I’m not sure.” She cocked an ear.
But the sound of a tinkle of water into a pot froze them both.
“Is that—?” He whispered.
A lady relieving herself in abourdaloue. “Yes.”
Their cheeks flared pink and their embarrassment continued until the tinkling stopped.
Then came the rustle of petticoats and gown. The snap of a garter. And the sound of water being emptied from one china pot to another.
“Oh, no,” mouthed Penn to him.
They both turned toward the sounds of footsteps.
Lady Southmore, an older lady and good friend of the countess, trotted around the edge of the folding screen. Spry and utterly composed, she whipped open her ivory fan with one hand and with the other, yanked her bodice higher up over her voluminous breasts. “I say, are you both well?”
Penn was certain she herself appeared as calm as an earthquake. “Yes! Thank you, my lady. Quite.”
“Good. I’m off then!” and the lady let herself out.
