She laughed, the admission slipping from her more easily than she would have guessed. “Both. Either.”
“Do you regret it?”
She paused, looking at him carefully. They were tangled together—not embracing, but close. “No,” she said eventually. “Not yet.”
“I hope you continue not to, then,” he said, and rolled off the bed to find a cloth to clean her up with. Emily lay back, her hands across her chest as she stared at the ceiling and allowed her body to settle into this feeling of having been so thoroughly pleasured.
Along with the pleasant buzzing through her limbs, however, and the rush of boneless satisfaction that had filled her, she was aware of a slight ache in her heart. As good as this had been, it would be—by her own decree—their last time. Probably her lasttime ever. Now she had experienced what it could be like with a man who submitted, could she ever return to intimacy that required a man compellingherinto submission?
Yet how empty the years seemed to her now without that intimacy.
When Oliver returned with the promised cloth, he leaned over to kiss her again. She allowed it, wanting to thank him for everything he had shown her even as she knew that every time she let him, it would be worse when they parted.
“Emily,” he said against her mouth. “Emily, I can’t bear it any longer.”
“Can’t bear what?” Her brows drew together, and she sat up, examining him. There were marks on his skin—hermarks—and she should not have felt such a rush of exhilaration at the sight. “Did I hurt you?”
He shook his head, but there was a new expression in his eyes now. All his teasing had fallen away, revealing something that looked just as raw as her heart felt. “No,” he said, and sucked in a breath. “I know you said I should expect nothing from you, and I admitted that I’d have no chance of convincing you otherwise, but I can’t bear this. I can’t. Let me care for you and Isabella—we can find her a good home, I promise. Another husband. I have connections—my sister is a duchess. You are the daughter of a gentleman; we are not so very disparate if you consider it. I can provide for you so you’ll never have to go hungry again, and perhaps your sister will take some time forgiving us, but shewill, and—”
“What are you saying?” Emily asked, her lips numb, the last of the post-coital bliss tightening and sinking until it resembled a lead weight inside her.
He gave a desperate, crooked sort of smile. “You know what I’m saying, darling. I’m asking you to marry me.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Emilygapedathimin horror. Of all the things he could have done and said on this, their last night together, he had to say the worst thing possible.
Asking her to marry him when he knew she could not.Wouldnot.
At her expression, he came to sit at the edge of the bed. “I know you’re scared,” he said, “but there’s no reason to be. I’m not Marlbury, and although no one can protect against death indefinitely, you are not your mother, or your father. As for Isabella—we can take her with us. I have connections that—”
“Enough.” She didn’t recognise her voice, or the cold, almost cruel edge to it. “All this to trick me into marriage?”
“Trick you? If I had tricked you, I would have a marriage certificate in my pocket, or we would be making our way back to Gretna Green.” He ran a tortured hand through his hair. “I’ve finally found something I want, Em. And I think you might want it too, if you would only let yourself want something for once in your damn life.”
Shehadallowed herself to want something—she had allowed herself to want this, and he had thrown it back in her face. “I told you my reasons for remaining unmarried,” she said, her calm disintegrating. Anger was safer than grief. “I told you repeatedly I would not marry you—and you promised never to ask me. Youpromised.”
“Would marrying me be so terrible? I’m not the finest gentleman in the land, but I can help you. Surely it would be better than the life you’ve been living.”
There was this awful cracking feeling in her chest, a hollow ache that she knew would not go away no matter how hard she tried. “I’m not some pity project, Oliver. You don’t get to swoop in like one of Arthur’s knights of the round table. I’m not a princess in a tower.”
“I wouldn’t be saving you,” he said, face suddenly alive with frustration. “You’d be saving me! And I’d be helping you. That’s what marriage is—or what it can be.”
Despite her best attempts, she imagined what her future with Oliver could look like. A house in the country—modest, but well-proportioned. Larger than the one she had grown up in. Stables with several horses and a carriage. Servants. Seasons in London. New dresses and shoes and absurdly rich and titled relations.
Security.
And Oliver. She would wake beside him every morning. Write his letters for him. Watch him strive to become better in ways she now knew he would.
It was all so very tempting.
But they had known each other a handful of days—not long enough to know if they had a foundation for marriage. Perhaps his motivations had changed, but he had left for the country with the intention of finding a wife to spite his brother. If she were that wife, her relationship with his family would be strained, probably for the rest of time.
A mere week ago, he had intended to marry her sister.
Isabella.
How could Emily ever marry the man her sister had hoped to marry? This was one thing—a short, fateful affair that would end when he took her home. But marriage?
