Beatrice found herself paralyzed.She didn’t know how to remedy what she had just done.
She hadn’t meant to push him away.And now she was not sure how to remedy the distance that she had created.
“Ishould be clear, Miss Salisbury,” he said, the return to her formal appellation a very poor sign, she knew, for their intimacy.“You need not worry about over-engaging my affections.I am a reasonable man.I am known for it.I have had many mistresses and have never found myself overset, as I told you.A rogue endearment is not enough to send me spinning.”
“Of course,” she said, grateful that he was speaking, that she did not have to begin the subject again.“I only did not want to make you uncomfortable.To make you think that I have begun harboring emotions that would only be irksome to you.”
He turned and looked at her.His amber eyes were shaded in the dimness of the carriage.She realized that she had no idea how he really felt about her.
This revelation was followed by a second.She was having difficulty knowing how sheherselffelt about him.
What she knew was that she enjoyed him.In bed and out of it.And that their time together was much more enjoyable when she felt the closeness with him that she had last night.
“Nothing you do is irksome to me,” he said, quietly.
She closed her eyes for a long second.His words touched some pain deep inside of her, which had been there for as long as she could remember.They made her feel strangely emotional.
“I am glad to hear it.”
“I want you to be natural with me.Do not worry about irking me.I know that you understand the limits of our arrangement.Inside of it, we may be as we wish.That is what I want.”
Beatrice exhaled.Ever since her father’s death, she was so used to being the rational one, the one with a plan, the one who saw things to rights.His simple words of tenderness and logic soothed her.
“Then I will be.I will say whatever nonsense in bed that comes into my mind.”
“Now you understand me exactly,” he said, smiling.“That is exactly what I would like.”
“Is there anything in particular you would like to be called in bed?”she said, looking up at him.
“I have already told you,” he said.“My Christian name.Thomas.When it is you, it feels altogether too formal to be called by my title.”
“But that’s what your mistresses have always called you.”
“It’s true,” he said.“But with you, it is different.”
“And why is that?”
He looked over at her, as if considering.
“It seems that, no matter what I do, you see what I would otherwise like to hide.So you might as well call me by my given name.”
“I do see some things, I suppose,” she said, considering his statement.It was true that she had understood, immediately, after that first time, that he had some very peculiar habits—that it had not been a moment but a pattern for him.“But not others.”
He shook his head.“I wager you see everything.”
She laughed.“No.You are very mysterious in some of your desires.”
He leveled her with a gaze.He looked so handsome and so powerful sitting across from her in his absurdly expensive carriage that most likely, on its own, could pay off her debts.In his polished Hessians and buckskin breeches, he was every inch the worldly peer, the wealthy and formidable marquess.
“I have no idea what you refer to.Enlighten me.”
She contemplated the question.The air had been so recently unsettled with them that she worried about setting things off-balance between them again.But she was genuinely curious.And he had just told her to be natural and not worry about irking him.
“Well, for one, I don’t understand why you won’t let me see you unclothed.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Leith stilled.
