She tilted her head. “A bookshop?”
He nodded. “I know you adore reading and I was able to make a special arrangement with Mattigan’s for a surprise.”
“Mattigan’s?” she burst out with a little clap of her hands. “Oh, it’s my favorite shop in the world.”
Once again, he was stopped in his tracks by her enthusiasm. When she was comfortable with a person, when she felt free to show her true self, she really was a revelation. The idea that her husband had never bothered to enjoy these wonderful aspects of her personality was…astounding.
And hurtful enough that he couldn’t help but recall she hadn’t answered his question in the carriage about marrying again.
“Shall we go?” he suggested, offering her his arm.
She took it, still pointing out different facets of sculptures all the way to the carriage. Her enthusiastic commentary continued until the carriage door shut and then she suddenly ceased talking and shook her head with a blush. “I-I’m sorry.”
He wrinkled his brow. “Why?”
“I’m sure I’m irritating you,” she explained. “I can see your expression and I realized I’ve talked your ear off for so long. Sometimes I get carried away with subjects I enjoy.”
He caught her hand and slowly shifted to her side of the carriage. Her breath hitched as he tilted her face up toward his. “I assure you, whatever look you saw on my face it was anything but irritation. I like listening to you talk, Etta. Passion is always welcome in my mind, whether that is in my bed or in a lecture hall or within the pages of a book.”
Her expression softened, almost as if she didn’t truly believe it, then she leaned up and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around her, returning the kiss with a fervor he realized was not perhaps the best idea when they had so short a time to get to the bookshop. But though it had only been a few hours since they last kissed, right now it felt like a lifetime and he wasn’t about to refuse her if she offered him a taste of heaven.
She tilted her head, deepening the kiss as her hands clenched against his forearms through his thick jacket. He could be lost in her. Never be found. It would be perfect.
But at last she let out a shuddering sigh and pulled back. “You make this too easy.”
“Too easy?” he repeated, refusing to release her even if they weren’t going to kiss anymore. She felt too damned good.
“When I’m with you, I lose track of everything,” she admitted, picking absently at a loose thread on his jacket sleeve.
“I like that,” he said. “I like to sweep you away like that. Isn’t that the way this is supposed to be?”
“I don’t even know anymore,” she whispered.
The carriage began to slow and he dropped another kiss to her lips before he reluctantly shifted back to his side of the vehicle. Though all he wanted to do was push this topic, he recognized that what he was doing by spending a day with her was at least sending a message that she was receiving: that being together was good whether it was in his bed or anywhere else.
He could only hope she’d be able to receive that message and not push it away.
CHAPTER16
It had been an almost perfect day. If Bernadette had written out her every desire, Theo had met almost every challenge she would have presented to him. And he had done it without being told or prodded, with a soft smile and enthusiastic participation.
And yet she felt…not exactly satisfied. Even as she strolled through the shelves at Mattigan’s, where she was normally perfectly content, she found herself distracted and out of sorts.
She and Theo had spent a little time after their arrival walking the shelves together, comparing which books they had each read. She had so long seen him as simply a playful rake that she found herself shocked by how much poetry he devoured and books he had read. He could easily quote lines from Walter Scott, Byron and Shakespeare. Usually so could she, but he flustered her.
She’d almost been relieved when he’d declared he had something to discuss with the shop’s owner, Mr. Mattigan, and left her to wander the aisles on her own. And yet she couldn’t focus, couldn’t settle. Theo was on her mind. She strained to hear his voice, even though he and the shopkeep were talking softly in the distance.
“You are hopeless,” she muttered to herself, and drew the first book near her hand off the shelf to force herself to look at it.
But she had not yet read a line when she heard someone say her name from the other end of the aisle. She froze, for the voice was as familiar as he own, despite how little she heard it anymore. She steeled herself and tuned toward it.
“Father,” she breathed, watching as the Earl of Etheridge came down the aisle toward her, dark brown eyes so much like her own moving over her, followed by an expression of disdain. She fought not to buckle beneath it. This man was the first one who had ever made her feel unwanted, invisible. He’d set the standards for everyone who came after.
Except Theo, of course. Thoughts of him buoyed her up and she straightened her spine.
“Gracious, what a thing to run into you here,” she said. “I thought you and Mama were in the country at your estate.”
Etheridge shook his head. “Not this year,” he said, and gave no further explanation of why they had changed their usual plans. She didn’t ask. He wouldn’t think to include her, as he didn’t really think of her as part of his family anymore. Not unless she ended up having use for him.
