But it was by far the nicest thing anyone had said to her for a long, long time.
Oh, dear, she feared she would hug to herself the memory of his impudent words for days to come. How pathetic she was!
8
Ben had been aware almost as soon as he entered the room that Mrs. McKay had been crying. There had been no trace of tears left, it was true, but a slight redness and puffiness about her eyes had betrayed her. He had set out to distract her with conversation and had ended up coming very near to flirting with her.
That hadnotbeen his intention when he had decided to come. Well, of course it had not. He had expected a very dull, very formal visit with two ladies, not one. He really ought to have left immediately after he knew she was unchaperoned.
But she had been crying. And it had been apparent that she did not want to be alone. So he had stayed—very unwisely. Being alone with her here felt very different from the way being alone with her two days ago in Bea’s flower garden had felt.
Dash it all.
He had not wanted a woman in six years—not women in general, and not any woman in particular. He had even been a little uneasy about it. Had his injuries included the death of his sexual appetites? But he had been only alittleuneasy since he knew he could never offer himself in marriage to any woman—not his broken self, anyway, and he was never going to be fully healed. He really could not bear the thought of offering himself outside of marriage either, since no amount of money would completely compensate for the physical revulsion any woman must surely feel if she was forced to be intimate with him.
He watched her in silence as she stood at the window. Her very dark, almost black hair was dressed in a simple knot at her neck. A few tendrils had pulled loose at the sides. They were uncrimped and hung long and straight to her shoulders. Her face was beautiful anyway. It needed no adornment. Her hideous black crepe dress could not hide the lush curves of her figure or the elegant perfection of her posture.
She had Gypsy blood, and she was sensitive about it. She had half expected he would want to leave once he knew.
She was, he thought, a woman desperately in need of a friend. And friendship was something he was quite happy to offer—for a short while, at least, until he went away.
The maid returned with a tray and set it down on a table before withdrawing. Mrs. McKay turned her head to acknowledge its arrival though she did not immediately move from the window.
“It is a dreary world out there,” she said. “It makes one thankful after all to be indoors with a fire burning in the hearth.”
“It is not dreary.” He drew his canes toward him and pulled himself to his feet as she watched. The dog scrambled up and looked at him, tail waving expectantly. Ben crossed the room to Mrs. McKay’s side. “Above the clouds, you know, there is nothing but blue sky and sunshine.”
“A fine consolation, indeed,” she said, turning her face back to the window and looking up, “when it is impossible to get up there to see.”
“A hot air balloon?” he suggested.
“Ugh!” She shuddered. “There would be rain on the way up to the clouds, and then the mist and dampness of the clouds themselves.”
“And the glory of the sunshine when we burst through to the other side,” he said.
“We? Would we go together, then?”
“Oh, I think so,” he said. “Iwasa military officer, of course, but I do not believe I could bellowI told you soquite loudly enough for you to hear me from down here.”
“It would be horribly cold despite the sunshine,” she said. “Have you never seen snow on mountaintops when it is warm on the plain?”
“You are determined to be pessimistic,” he told her. “We would take fur robes with us and huddle together inside them.”
“Together?”
She turned her head again. Her face was very close to his.
“One of the best sources of heat,” he explained, “is body heat. I daresay it would be very chilly indeed up there.”
“But we would be warm and snug together inside our furs.”
“Yes. We would enjoy double our individual body heat.”
He could almost feel her breath on his face.Andher body heat. And here he was flirting again, but far more blatantly this time. Though he had not meant to. He had meant to cheer her up, to coax a smile or a laugh out of her.
“Where would we go?” she asked.
“Far, far away.” His eyes dipped to her lips when she moistened them with her tongue.
