For the briefest moment, her expression betrayed a horrible loss. “And then what else do I have? A lifetime importuning friends and waiting for my family to remember where I am?”
“I cannot imagine you allowing yourself to languish for long. Talk to Drake. He said he thought you would be an asset in diplomatic circles.”
She smiled, but it was not amused. “Not without a husband, I wouldn’t,” she said. “Without a husband, I cannot see that I would be an asset to anyone. Women are not given that option.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but he couldn’t. She was right, of course. It was just that this was not the direction he needed the conversation to take. This was not the time to reassure Pip that of course her future had purpose, even without him as her husband. Especially without him as her husband.
“Please,” he said, “at least for now until we settle the mess here. We need to stay apart.”
For a moment she just looked at him, as if there was too much that needed to be said. It wasn’t the time, though. She must see that. Taking a great breath, she shook her head and stepped away. “I will stay apart if you will.”
For some reason that did not relieve him. “I don’t see why we cannot maintain a respectful distance if we want. I mean, the house isn’t that small.”
Why then did she smile? And why did that smile seem so fatalistic?
He found out five minutes later when they went upstairs to prepare for dinner.
“What do you mean only one bedroom?!” he shouted.
9
“It is a dower house, Beau,” Pip explained as patiently as she could from the bedroom doorway as he strode up and down the little hall throwing doors open on the way by. Well, two doors. The previous duke had installed a lovely bathing chamber with a bathtub for his aunt in one old bedroom and made the other into a kind of office she had never used, being happier working in the library surrounded by shelves. “Used for dowagers and maiden aunts who tend not to bring anyone with them except a companion. Lizzie’s aunt wanted nothing to do with companions.”
“That is absurd!” he snapped, whirling around on her.
She instinctively took a step back. She couldn’t remember ever seeing Beau this furious, this desperate. He suddenly reminded her of a trapped animal who was ready to gnaw his leg off to get free.
But then, if he was feeling even a bit as upended as she did by that kiss in the library, she could hardly blame him. She undoubtedly should never have given in to the temptation to remind him of what he would be forfeiting. She still felt as if her bones had melted like lava, incinerating every inch of her, but especially her brain. All she could think was that she wanted to drag him down and do it again. And again. She wanted to know where his hand would have gone if she hadn’t been wearing breeches, which had made perfect sense climbing onto a horse, but not all but climbing her husband.
She wasn’t sure exactly what she’d been thinking except to prove that he wasn’t anywhere nearly as unmoved as he wanted her to believe. For heaven sakes, all one had to do was look at the fit of his breeches to know the truth of that. Couldn’t he at least give them a chance?
Oh, lord, she shouldn’t keep looking at them. It would only get her into more trouble. And she knew from his mad pacing that he wouldn’t thank her for pressing him.
He was glaring at her as if she had planned the whole fiasco, which spoke volumes of how he saw her. It had only been three days, and she was already exhausted by the mood swings, the accusations, the anger and obviously, now, the desperation to be quit of her. It mixed so well with the seething desire Beau had unleashed not ten minutes earlier. She could barely breathe, much less think. And he expected her to show some sense about this. She was not at all sure she could.
“It is quite pointless to harangue me about it,” she finally said, hearing the useless tears crowd her throat. “Staying here was not my idea. If you had thought to inform me, I could have told you all about the accommodations here, and we could have found somewhere else. As it is, we don’t have time to argue about it right now. We are expected to enjoy a lovely dinner, courtesy of the duchess’s very loyal staff, who are right now undoubtedly listening to you make yourself very clear about being rid of me.”
And blast if Beau didn’t drag both his hands through his hair, which would have given Sullins heart failure. “I’m trying to protect you, dammit!”
She sighed. “You forgot to ask whether I sought protection. In fact, you forgot to ask what I wanted at all.”
His head came up and he stared at her, his expression betraying so many emotions, none of them positive. Frustration, fury, defensiveness, regret. Oh, definitely regret, Pip saw, which made her feel so much better.
“I’m sorry, Pip,” he said. “I truly am. But I want you to have a choice. I still think this offers you your best chance at a good life.”
And blast if she didn’t believe he meant it.
“Tell me the truth,” she demanded. “Is it that you cannot tolerate the idea of spending your life with me, or that you believe I will not be able to tolerate life with you?”
And couldn’t he at least have had the decency to demand this conversation before that performance that morning?
He went back to torturing his hair. “I believe you have a romantic idea of what our marriage would be like, left over from when you were a little girl. And I know I am not the same man I was back then.”
She could hardly argue with him about that.
“Could we not at least try to negotiate our way to an agreeable solution? Countless other couples have done it over the centuries.”
The bottomless grief in his dear brown eyes all but brought her to her knees. “I just don’t know, Pip. A few days would at least give us time to better think things through.”
