Adelaide laughed. “If they knew I was a lady, the daughter of an Earl, they wouldneverallow me to work there. The ramifications would be too great, my aunt would make sure of it. Not to mention that there are some there who might try to use that knowledge against me. Blackmail me.”
“So you are the only soul in the world that knows my secret, beyond a few servants,” he said.
“And you are the only one who knows mine,” she finished with a soft smile for him. One he returned instantly.
“And when would you have told me if I hadn’t uncovered the truth tonight?” he whispered.
She caught her breath. This was something he hadn’t fully thought through yet. She wasn’t exactly ready to help him do so, but she couldn’t lie to him. She didn’t want to.
“I was waiting for…for…” She blushed and he leaned forward.
“It cannot be worse than anything you’ve already said,” he reassured her.
She shifted, suddenly feeling her nakedness keenly. Clenching her fingers in her lap, she took a deep breath and said, “The last time you were with Lydia, you weren’t…careful, Graham.”
He stared at her a moment, then his eyes went wide, as if he were remembering the last time he’d made love to her before he knew the truth. “Oh God, I was so upset, so distracted that I…I came inside of you.”
How she hated the horror in his voice. “For a woman like Lydia, it might not end the world to have an illegitimate child. But I’m not Lydia, not truly. I wanted to come to you after I could safely say there was no baby. I didn’t want my telling you the truth to force you into…into some kind of honorable response.”
His jaw tightened. “You mean you didn’t want me to be forced into marriage with you.”
She nodded. “I’d never do that, Graham. The fact was, Iwasruined before you touched me. As long as there is no baby—which, based on the timeline, there likely won’t be—there is no reason for you to throw yourself away on me.”
He stared at her, his brow wrinkled. “You think that’s what I would see it as?”
“I don’t know,” she said softly. “But I know after what you’ve just been through with Meg and Simon, with your past with your parents, the last thing you should have to do is be forced into a life with someone. I’d never do that to you.”
He shook his head. “I wouldneveraccuse you of doing so.”
He pushed to his feet as he said the words, and she watched as a wall came down between them. One she hadn’t expected after their connection and their honesty. One that stung her far more than it should have, given her lies, given his kindness about those lies.
“I should go,” he said, finding his trousers in the mess of clothing on the floor. “Before we’re found.”
She swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat. Past the disappointment she hadn’t earned. Graham had never made promises to Lydia. And even if he said he wanted her as Adelaide, he’d never acted on those impulses until the truth was out.
He owed her nothing. She would ask for nothing.
She pulled her chemise from her dress and tugged it over her head. “I understand.”
He was buttoning his shirt as she spoke and turned on her with a strange expression. “I’m not entirely certain that you do,” he said. “Emma says you’ll be here tomorrow.”
She nodded. “She is trying to keep me here as long as my aunt will allow.”
“Why?” he asked, once more his body and face on edge.
She hesitated, not wanting to cause him to think on the horrible past. “She likes having me here,” she lied.
He seemed to ponder the answer a moment, but he didn’t challenge it. “Well, I’ll return tomorrow. We can discuss all this in more detail then, Adelaide. When neither of us is so…distracted.”
She nodded, knowing he was right. Recognizing that some distance was what they both needed. He leaned in and kissed her gently, his mouth probing hers until she opened to him and relaxed against him with a shuddering sigh.
He pulled away, his gaze unfocused and filled with the desire she had come to know so well. Then he shook his head. “Good night, Adelaide.”
“Good night,” she said, watching him go. Then she sagged against the settee.
When she’d pictured telling Graham the truth, she had never allowed herself to hope that he wouldn’t hate her. That it wouldn’t destroy all the bonds they had built between them. But he’d been wonderful and understanding and everything she had ever wanted.
And even so, she was left unsatisfied, because he had left with so much between them unsaid. Andshewas left with growing feelings in her heart that could only leave her disappointed.
