Theo stepped forward before she had to respond. “I will take Etta. She and I have something to discuss in regard to the exhibit we saw today.”
Flora’s eyebrows lifted and she glanced at Bernadette. She nodded so Flora would know that was fine with her. “Very well.”
She crossed the room and linked her arm with Bernadette’s as the group of them made their way to the foyer. While the carriage was being brought around, Flora looked at her. “Perhaps tomorrow or the next day, you and I could meet. Take a walk in the park near the Row. Talk about…” She nudged her head toward Theo.
Bernadette shook her head. “I’m surprised you managed to not ask about him today.”
“I thought you deserved a break after nearly being run down.” Flora leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Enjoy your night. I’ll speak with you soon.”
She joined her husband and the rest of the goodbyes were said. Bernadette and Theo stood at the door, watching their carriage roll away. He looked down at her once it was gone. “I would like to put my arm around you,” he said.
Every fiber of her being wanted to acquiesce to that. To surrender to what he wanted. To make this right and believe whatever lie he told her to soften the fact that once he had said he’d rather die than marry her.
She stepped away. “Theo.”
He nodded. “I understand. I won’t push. I just wanted you to know that I felt that way.”
They turned back into the house and the parlor they had abandoned for the goodbyes. He moved to the sideboard and freshened his drink. “Did she give you much bother about me?” he asked, his tone light now. As if his request hadn’t been made and denied.
“I assume you mean Flora? She does want to talk about you,” she admitted. “But she gave me a respite today for some reason. She said it was because I was nearly run down.”
“You don’t believe it?” He stepped toward her half a step and she felt his presence like he had gone farther. Put his arms around her.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” she whispered.
He understood the double meaning, of that she was certain. He set his untouched drink on the table behind him and for another charged moment, they just looked at each other.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a voice that barely carried.
She frowned at the sadness in his tone. At the feeling of it in her heart. When they’d begun this, she’d wanted to be certain it wouldn’t harm their friendship, but it felt exactly like that now. Her pain and her heart, his guilt and their past…it made everything heavy and overwrought.
Somehow…perhaps in that moment when the horse nearly killed her…they’d gone too far. Opened a door she now had to close. And the only way to do it was to…end this.
She nearly buckled beneath that realization. By the power of the loss it would create.
“Bernadette,” he whispered.
She flinched at the use of her full name, which he so rarely did. Another indication of how far they’d gone, how much they’d past the boundaries of this affair. God, she didn’t want this. She didn’t want this fraught and dire energy between them. She didn’t want him to look at her like he had so many important things to say. They would either confuse her or break her heart, and she wasn’t ready for either of those options. Not when she knew that this was over. That it had to be over.
She just wasn’t brave enough to tell him. Nor brave enough to let him go. Not until she felt the full weight of his desire one last time. Not until she had one more memory to cling to, keep her warm when he was gone and life was…colder.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she whispered. She saw him buckle a little. Pain and guilt doubling in those bright eyes. She didn’t want that, either. Legs shaking, she stepped forward and caught his hand, lifting it to her lips, kissing his knuckles. He sucked in a breath, his pupils dilating with desire that seemed to erase everything else. Good, that was what she could control. That was what was within the parameters of their agreement.
“What do you want to feel, Theo?”
CHAPTER18
Theo stopped breathing as he stared at Etta. She’d asked him the same question he’d been asking her over and over again during their affair. The question that led him to touch her as she needed to be touched. That helped him crack her open when she would not allow him access in any other way but through her body.
He didn’t know why she was asking it of him now, when so much else hung between them. When she had only erected walls since the unfortunate encounter with her father. The only reason he could give himself was the worst one: that she wanted to use pleasure as a barrier. The same way he had many times with many ladies.
Even with her at the beginning of this affair.
However, her question gave him the opportunity to do what Roarke had advised him of earlier in the night: to be vulnerable. Even though he loved her, was he capable of such a thing?
“Theo,” she whispered, her dark eyes holding his.
He wanted to be capable for her. So he drew a shaky breath. “I cannot express to you how empty my life has been.”
