“Give you up? Annabelle, I do no such thing.”
“Your regret is evident.”
“No, it is not. I may care about the difficulties our relationship puts me in—but that doesn’t mean I give you up. Or regret it.”
“I don’t want to cause trouble for you, Alfred.”
“I know,” he says. “But you cannot control it. Our connection is scandalous. We are living together unwed.”
There it is again. Matrimony. It already itches at my brain after my discussion with Mrs. Ludlow.
“Mrs. Ludlow came to see me,” I say. “She thought we should marry.”
“She is a very sweet woman,” Alfred says. He isn’t looking at me but closing up his letters.
“I can never marry,” I tell him.
“I know.”
“And you would never want to marry me.”
He looks up at me.
“Why do you say that?”
“I am infamous,” I say, gesturing in frustration. “Etcetera. And it is a very permanent connection. What could be your incentive?”
“To be your husband, for one. To have you forever.”
I startle at his ardent tone.
“Are you saying—you would? Want to marry me?”
“Of course I would, Annabelle,” he says. “It would quiet the scandal as well. In time. It would ease the way. Butthat’s not why. I have told you. I love you. And I would love to be bound to you in the manner of a man to his wife. Before God.”
“God,” I say, spitting out the word. “I do not believe in God.”
“Yes, but I do,” he says.
“You believe in the God that made you suffer all those years?” I say. “That tortured you?”
He shakes his head. “That wasn’t God. That was man. It was my father and my teachers and the church and William Acton who told me such things. And they are wrong. About God and what he wants.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I never feel closer to God then when I’m inside of you. Or giving you pleasure. Or receiving it from you.”
He kisses me then, putting his lips to my neck.
“I don’t think the archbishop would agree.”
“Devil the archbishop,” he says. “He doesn’t know of what he speaks. I know what I feel. I believe in God—and I believe that he wants me here with you.”
My mind rebels at his absurd belief. But when he covers my mouth with his, I lose myself in the kiss.
Chapter 33
Alfred
