He almost smiled. “Of course.”
“Why did you come to the masquerade last night?”
“Because,” he said, catching her gaze and holding it, “I thought you wanted me to.”
She nodded once, abruptly, her hands clenched before her. He reached for them, smoothing out her fingers and rubbing the half-moon welts her nails had left behind. “How about aquestion in return? A truth for a truth?” At her nod, he asked, “Why did you pretend not to know me?”
“Because you pretended not to knowme.” As though sensing he wanted more, she glanced away, throat working as she thought. “And because I thought it could be a chance to start afresh. To see what dancing would be like if you were not my husband but merely a man.”
The very reason he’d allowed her to lead, allowed her to weave a new deception around them. One that abandoned the gauntlets they’d taken up in the days after their wedding. “And how was it?”
“It convinced me that I like the man.”
“And not the husband?”
A line appeared between her brows. “I wish to reconcile the two.” She glanced up at him, eyes pleading. “For you to be Odysseus, and for me to be Circe.”
“IamOdysseus, love,” he said, brushing his knuckles along her cheek. “I always have been.”
“Youavoidedme this morning,” she accused, a note of such petulance in her voice that he smiled.
“I had a lot to think about, and I needed space to do it with a clear head.”
“You mean not with me?”
“You’re distracting,” he said, and was rewarded with one corner of her lips curving. “And last night, I . . .”Wanted you so badly I could hardly breathe. “I needed to know I was making the right decision.”
“Which is?”
“I will not endure intimacy with a wife who is not wholly committed to me. But,” he added before she could say whatever words were on her tongue, “if you work with me, I will work with you. Try, Cecily. Give me your word that you will try, and I will, too.” He smiled, releasing her. “That’s all I ask.”
Her eyes were clear and bright, every shade of green. “Do you need me to love you? For you to stay?”
“I need you to at least want to,” he said, his voice gravelly and low. She shivered. “I am not unreasonable, but I want you too much to be satisfied with a little. I will not settle for only part of you, or half measures. Either I will have all of you, or I will have none at all.”
Chapter Nine
Percy arranged his legs so his knees didn’t brush against Cecily’s opposite him. Her travelling cloak lay discarded beside her as she peered out of the window. In prior years, she had left the travel arrangements to him, but this time, she had arranged almost everything.
To reward her efforts, he’d chosen to share the carriage with her rather than riding alongside, as was often his way. That was as far as he was prepared to go, however. If she wanted conversation, or to speak whatever was so obviously on her mind, she would have to do so of her own volition. So far, they’d been silent as they’d left London and changed horses.
Instead of making idle small talk, he laced his fingers on his chest and examined her in the hazy late-June sunlight. Soft auburn curls fell around her face, the ribbons of her bonnet pinning them against her cheek. She huffed one away, and he watched as the lock of hair fluttered in the wake of her breath.
Poetry had never been a form of expression that he had mastered—and now he lamented it, wished that he knew how tocapture that tilt in her expression when she raised her gaze to his. That dawning realisation.
If he could, he would have wrapped it up in words and committed them to paper so he would never forget.
“I was thinking that we should extend the pond,” she said.
He almost laughed. Instead of a heavy conversation about the future of their marriage, approached like a battleground scarred by past victims, she’d chosen to begin the conversation with this.
A pleasant surprise.
He arched his brows, giving her free rein, the way he would offer his horse its head. “The pond?”
“Yes. I read a book recently about duck husbandry.”
He could barely contain his smile. “Naturally.”
