“Oh,” she said, more catch in her throat than word, and for a moment they simply looked at each other. “I promise you,” she added, “that I will never stop loving you, either. But I will stop asking for continual reassurance about your feelings.”
He laughed. Then he remembered what he was supposed to be telling her. How could he bring it upnow?
“There’s a reason I wanted that clarity,” she said, taking his hand. “You see, I have the sinking feeling that you no longer plan to marry me the day after tomorrow.”
His astonishment gave him away.
“Ah,” she said, her own face far less revealing. Was she upset? Angry? Resigned?
“I can’t,” he said. “It’s not that I don’t want to—Ican’t.”
The sight of her lips twitching stopped him. The one reaction he hadn’t prepared for was amusement. “I see,” she said. “You are no longer of sound mind, perhaps?”
“Beatrix—”
“Or you’ve just now recalled that you’re already married. It’s the sort of thing one might forget.”
She was teasing him, trying to make him laugh again—and she succeeded, just a little. But it was a temporary diversion.
“I can’t marry you as I am.” He closed his eyes. “I have no source of income, no way tomakemoney, and—once the hospital bill comes due—no savings. It’s going to take a considerable amount of time to find something I’m qualified to do and dig myself out of this chasm.”
“Look at me,” she demanded—no longer teasing. As he opened his eyes, she grasped his face with both hands, jaw set. “I want you as you are. Do you hear me, Peter Blackwell? We will befine. Your brewing amounts to earning rent. My wages will keep us fed—we’ll have enough left over for us after helping Lydia. We’ll pay off the hospital billseventually. Wewill. Good God, you know very well I’m not marrying you for your income potential! I want to see you every day, to talk to you in private whenever I please, to go into your,our, bedroom at night?—”
She broke off, breathing unsteadily. His skin tingled. His heart thudded in his ears. She had him the moment she began to argue her case, but he wasn’t about to let her stop now.
“Yes?” he whispered, shifting closer. “Go into our bedroom and …?”
“Undress you.” She let out a shuddering breath as he slipped an arm around her waist. “And watch you undress me.”
He shifted one of her hands so he could kiss her palm. “Go on.”
“I want to—to see you and touch you—oh,” she said, as he put his lips against the sensitive skin on her wrist and worked up her inner arm. Her eyes fluttered closed. “I want you—Iwantyou?—”
He kissed her. They were as tightly pressed together as their clothes allowed, his right hand wrapped in her hair, his left on the sweet curve of her bottom, when he came to his senses and pulled back.
“Rosemarie,” he said, casting an eye down their intertwined, supine bodies, “would behorrified.”
Beatrix’s throaty laugh almost broke what was left of his self-control. He scrambled to his feet, because vertical was safer than horizontal, and helped her up.
“Have I convinced you?” Her question sounded casual, but her hand clutching his belied it. He nodded.
“I ought to stick to my principles,” he said, “but it’s so tempting to be selfish when the person you’d be taking advantage of is urging you on.”
She made a face at him. “You promised me an enlightened marriage. How exactly is it taking advantage of me if we’re both contributing?”
“The hospital bill?—”
She kissed him. He suspected that was for want of a better argument, but it worked, because he had no desire to press it further.
“Just tell me this,” he said. “How on earth did you realize my intentions about the wedding before I said a word about them?”
She smiled, and there was such beauty in the crinkle of her eyes, the crooked quirk of her lips, the arch of her eyebrow. “Oh, Iknowyou, Peter Blackwell. Inside and out.”
“Plagiarist,” he said in her ear, drawing out the word, making her laugh.
She held him tightly for a moment before stepping back. “We’ll have to leave pretty soon.”
“Yes.”
