“Not a pattern!”
“A colored…” She touched her chest, forgetting the right word.
“Cravat? Gray isn’t enough?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. Was he teasing her? He didn’t seem to be and so she spoke her mind. “Red is the color of celebration.”
He wrinkled his nose as he stepped to see his reflection in the window. “I’d feel like a man trying to be a flower. A rose or something.”
“Try a gem.”
“A ruby? Perhaps.” He waggled his brows at her. “I don’t want to be a dandy, you know.”
Whatever a dandy was, she guessed he was far from it. “You must follow your own heart.”
His expression sobered as he turned to look at her. The look was entirely at odds with his words. As if he were apologizing with his face even as he spoke words of flattery. “What if I wish to please you?”
How was she to answer that? She stared at him without voice. What did he want from her?
She must have made a sound of distress. Or perhaps he could read the confusion on her face. He crossed immediately to her side but stopped short of dropping down on one knee to speak to her. Instead, he pulled over an embroidered footstool and perched on it like an awkwardly large frog. One in impeccable dress, which made it even more comical.
“Yihui, I must beg your forgiveness. I behaved abominably.” He reached out as if to touch her face but stopped halfway between them. “No true gentleman does…what I did. It was without honor, and I swear it will not happen again.”
She swallowed. She had already steeled herself to that possibility, and yet the reality still cut. She fought it by studying his face, by thinking about his mannerisms, and finally seeing what was the truth of him.
He was a man who had desires but was forced to suppress them. She didn’t understand the reasons for his control, butguessed they were significant. Either way, he denied his needs until they came spilling out in an unguarded moment.
At such a time, he would act. He would kiss her and touch her in ways that set her body soaring. But once it was done, he would leave in shame. He would disappear only to come back and apologize for his actions.
Her father was one such man. The main difference was that his outbursts were violent. His needs screamed so loud sometimes that nothing else could be heard and no one was safe.
Max was of a different sort. His needs were for pleasure. His desires were to give happiness, but something about his life kept him in austere colors as he danced attendance upon a mercurial ruler. Every moment they had been together he had tried to give her what he could—protection, healing, and physical delight.
What was wrong with the others in his life that they could not take such a thing from him? That they rebuffed his need to make others happy? She already knew his mother was perpetually sour. Perhaps it was because of her physical pain, but the lady was sour even when she wasn’t in pain. Yihui knew little of his father except that he made demands of everyone. Emmaline had said as much. As for his sister, she adored her brother and yet never ceased picking at him. It was often as a tease, but the rejection remained the same.
“You wish to see me happy?” she asked as she felt her way through her revelation.
“Of course.”
She almost smiled at that. No man said, of course he wanted to make a woman happy. Men usually wanted to make themselves happy and their wives needed to stay out of their way.
She nearly demanded that they wed. No other woman would see him as clearly as she did. With this knowledge, she could be the perfect woman for him. She would be faithful as he gaveher whatever would make her happiest. Who wouldn’t want a husband like that?
But she knew there were restrictions. He would become very powerful when his father passed. She understood that much of English society. And she could not fit into that mold. Therefore, she would take what she could, even if it was less than she wanted.
“I want to have an apothecary shop. Can you find me a place to work?”
He frowned. “You don’t have to worry about that right now.”
“You do not have to worry about it, but I am a woman with nothing. If I do not look to my future, then who will?”
He nodded. “Very well, if that’s what you want. I shall find a place for you and help you establish it. But first—”
“I will learn whatever your mother wishes to teach me. I will act the perfect bride for you. I swear, I will become everything you need me to be.”
His breath eased out of him, not as a release of tension but an acceptance of a burden. “She will not be easy on you.”
Yihui nodded. “It is necessary. This is what you have asked of me, yes?”
