He did not believe she expected an answer. But what did her words suggest about her marriage to the Reverend Tavernor? That it had been so perfect that it could never be replicated? Or that it had been quite the opposite and was never to be repeated? It was reallynone of his business, Harry decided. But she had aroused his curiosity.
“Is a woman quite unfree when she marries, then?” he asked. “I have two sisters who would take issue with that notion. And a mother.”
“They are fortunate,” she said, suggesting an answer to his unspoken questions. “But you have not married.”
“No, ma’am,” he agreed in a tone that he hoped would discourage her from continuing. “I have not.”
“I will never marry again,” she said, folding her arms beneath her bosom and hunching her shoulders as though against the chill of the night. “I value my freedom and independence too well. But they do come at a cost, Major Westcott. I sometimes wish … With someone who feels as I do about marriage, that is, but nevertheless is sometimes lonely … I …” Her words were spilling out quickly and breathlessly and a bit incoherently. “Oh, goodness, I do not know what I am trying to say. Nothing of any sense or significance, I daresay. Ignore me, please. It is late.”
What the devil?
What the devil?
Harry stood where he was on the path just below her doorstep as she gazed at him for a moment, stepped backward into the house, raised a hand in farewell at the same moment as she gave him the ghost of a smile, said good night again though not much sound escaped her lips, and closed the door.
What the devil? Harry thought again.
She had not been flirting with him. One could not imagine Mrs. Tavernor flirting with any man. And she was not in search of another husband. She had said so, and in no uncertain terms.
But she wantedsomething.
Had she been making him a proposition? Was it even remotely possible?Mrs. Tavernor?The bland, pious, almost silent widow of the zealously puritanical Reverend Isaiah Tavernor?
She wanted alover?
Specificallyhim?
I sometimes wish … With someone who feels as I do about marriage, that is, but nevertheless is sometimes lonely …
By God, shehadmade him a proposition. Or started to, anyway. Until her impulsive words—for they surelyhad beenimpulsive—had shocked her and she had tried her best to unsay what had already been spoken and could never be recalled.
Good God!
Yes, he was sometimes lonely. Of course he was. He had admitted it to himself just lately. But was it not true of everyone? As he had said to her? He just never knew quite what to do about his own loneliness when it hit him—which was not by any means all the time or even very often.
Harry wondered suddenly if she was peering out through the curtains drawn over her front window and feeling a bit uneasy about seeing him still standing here like a statue on her garden path. He turned to leave, stopping only briefly after passing through the gate to shut it behind him.
He was not ready for marriage yet. But … an affair? With a willing partner? A social equal? Someone who clearly understood—and would make him clearly understand—that it wasnota courtship and never would be? Someone close to home? At the end of his own drive, in fact?
Mrs. Tavernor?
The Reverend Isaiah Tavernor’s widow?
Harry strode along the drive with incautious haste, given that it was pitch-dark and his lantern was not as effective as it might have been.
The very idea ought to be laughable. Or horrifying. Bizarre. Beyond the realm of reality. He was pretty sure, however, that she had been serious, though she had not come out and said specifically that that was what she wanted. She had stopped herself in time. There was nothing else she could have meant, though, was there?
One thing was beyond question. After a number of years during which he had been almost completely unaware of her existence, Mrs. Tavernor had suddenly become a very real person to him in the past hour—not even that long— and quite distinct from her late husband. She had come alive as a woman who valued freedom and independence, even though the price she had to pay was some loneliness and—presumably—an occasional craving for sex.
Devil take it, it reallywasbizarre. Mrs. Tavernor and sex just did not go together in his head.
But she wanted a lover.
Him.
Are you ever lonely?
Four
