“I could come to London.”
Real fear flashed in her eyes. Why didn’t Lisbeth want him to visit London? He didn’t understand it. “Are you concerned about what people will think if you associate with a commoner?”
Her eyes sparked with outrage. “Of course not. I would be proud to be your friend.”
Yet, he expected she didn’t want any more than that. Thomas supposed he couldn’t blame her. They were practically strangers, well, not in this bed but in real life. His hand slid along the curve of her back, swirling over her bottom. Desire flared in her eyes.
They’d promised each other just this night. He wouldn’t push it. Lisbeth was a duchess and lived a completely different life from him. Perhaps the next few hours could resolve all the anger of the past and allow them to move on. She reached for his hand, kissing his knuckles.
He rolled to his back, pulling her on top of him astride. Lisbeth gasped. Thomas grinned at her, even though his heart was aching, and said, “We still have a few more hours left of this night.”
*
Days later, Thomaspaced back and forth as he watched other people board a ship. He glanced at Rafe, who chuckled at him.
“Is this a crazy idea?” he asked his friend.
Rafe shrugged. “Who cares if it is? If you don’t go to London, you will always wonder about what could have been between you and Lisbeth.”
He and Rafe had departed Latakia before Lisbeth, Benson, and Abbas’s ship. The further Thomas was away from the city, the more he started to realize that he shouldn’t have ever kissed Lisbeth goodbye. His need for her was too strong. He didn’t want to go decades without seeing her again.
Why couldn’t he live in London? Rose had moved there, and she was happy. Still, there had been no confessions of love or promises of a future. In all honesty, they’d departed like they would never see each other again.
“I’m chasing the woman who abandoned me once,” he explained to his friend.
“You, yourself, said she didn’t have much of a choice. Why not go back to London and woo her?”
Thomas hated to admit it, but he was nervous to return to the city. He’d been barely a man when he left, and the son of a housekeeper.
Rafe grasped his shoulders. “Do you love her?”
He did. It didn’t matter that a decade had gone by. Thomas loved her with every part of his being. “She has always been the one.”
“Then go and fight for her.”
Thomas hugged Rafe. “Will you come visit?”
“Eventually, but you’ve inspired me. I might return home first and see where things stand. If I don’t, I will always wonder.”
“Good luck, my friend. You are always welcome at my home in England.”
Rafe grinned. “On the ship, you go. Tell Lisbeth I said hello.”
Thomas stepped onto the gangplank, ready to change his entire life if Lisbeth would have him. In three weeks, he’d be in London.
Chapter Twelve
Late February 1851
Lisbeth smiled asshe watched Jeremy and Alice race around the gardens of the ducal townhouse. It was good to be home. Their governess, Miss Ashby, insisted they’d not grown much since her departure, but she wasn’t sure she believed her.
Alice skipped around the fountain. She was eleven years old. Time flew. Soon, she would have her first season. Lisbeth frowned at her thoughts. She and Nicholas had discussed at great length that they would make Alice wait longer than other ladies to find a husband.
They’d even talked about taking her on a grand tour first. Lisbeth gulped, sadness flowing through her that Nicholas wouldn’t be part of that. She studied her daughter, who, according to all of London, bore a striking resemblance to her father. Lisbeth was grateful the world believed that.
Her mind flashed to Thomas, and guilt intermingled with the sadness flowing through her. She’d desperately wanted to confess the truth while she was in Syria, but knew it wouldn’t do any good. Now, though, she was filled with regret that she’d omitted something so important from him. Alice was Thomas’s child. She’d been pregnant when she returned, not that she knew until after she and Nicholas had married.
She hadn’t lied when she told Thomas that she revealed everything to Nicholas. Lisbeth, greatly distressed, had blurtedit out to her husband of only a week. She’d expected him to cast her out, but he hadn’t. Instead, he explained that he’d lost someone he loved, too. She was his mistress, Margaret, of fifteen years, and had died of a fever only a few months before.
