It was too much. She couldn’t be expected to bear it.
This man. This duke. What was he doing to her? Did he even know?
Did she?
“That’s easy enough to say, here and now,” she croaked, her heart strangling in her chest. “In this private room set apart from the rest of the world. But if you knew who I really am? You’d never touch me again.”
His arms tightened around her as though he wanted to argue, to tell her she was wrong, but Bess kissed him quiet and settled back against his chest. She didn’t want to hear it.
Because he didn’t know. He couldn’t ever know.
What he said could not be the truth. It was purest fantasy, and Bess…Bess had never had the luxury of living in a fantasyland. It was reality she had to contend with.
And her reality was that her entire life was based upon doing what was expected. What was needed. By others.
If she let herself believe she could have more than that, she risked losing everything she did have. And what would be left? A few stolen nights of passion, nothing more.
Because this could never, ever be anything more than the briefest—the sweetest—of fantasies.
She fell asleep in his arms, with silent tears on her cheeks and a sharp awareness of the danger she was in stabbing at her heart.
The next night…she didn’t go back to The Nemesis.
The adventure was over, Bess told herself, lying alone in her bed at Ashbourn House. It had to end here, before she was lost so deep in the woods that she could never find her way home.
And if the word home no longer conjured up an image of the thriving little coaching inn back in her tiny Wiltshire village, but instead the precise angle and scent of the hollow of a certain duke’s throat, well. At least Bess would always have her memories.
Too bad it felt, for the first time, like memories wouldn’t be enough to keep her warm.
Chapter Eighteen
“I saw my brother this morning on his way out the door,” Lucy informed Bess over slices of seed cake. “He looked as if he’d slept about as well as you. Which is to say, not at all.”
Bess couldn’t help the way her pulse picked up and her hands shook, but she managed not to spill her tea. She took a sip. “Flattering, thank you, Lucy.”
“I don’t see how anyone in the Ton looks well rested, ever. What a mad schedule to keep. When we left the Winterton ball last night at three in the morning, it was still going strong! I was surprised you wanted to stay as late as you did.”
Bess hid the way her lower lip wanted to tremble with another sip of tea. “I suppose I’m growing used to Town hours.”
Up until three nights ago, Bess had to admit she hadn’t pressed Lucy to stay out late. When Lucy begged to leave a ball or party at midnight, before the supper was even served, Bess had acquiesced—ostensibly for Lucy’s sake, but secretly and shamefully, for her own. Because up until three nights ago, Bess had somewhere else to be.
A place—and a person—she couldn’t wait to get to.
I’d still want you if you were a mess. If the entire rest of the world burned down, I’d still want you.
But that was all over now. Bess pulled in a ragged breath and composed herself. She had finally regained enough of her senses to fear for what might happen if she continued seeing Nathaniel at The Nemesis, and she couldn’t go back now.
She had taken an incalculable risk over these last few weeks—to her reputation, such as it was, but more crucially, to her heart.
The way she had longed to throw herself, and caution, to the winds when he spoke to her like that. The way she’d wanted to rip off his mask and hers too, to trust that he meant it and wouldn’t turn from her even when he saw who she was.
But a voice in her head had pointed out that even if he knew it was Bess…he still wouldn’t truly know the truth of her past. There was no future with Nathaniel. She could not allow herself to forget it again. She had to be wise enough to let him go.
So for the past three nights, she had gone to parties and routs with Lucy, and encouraged her to stay out later, through dinner and the dancing that followed, hoping to make up for lost time.
Hoping to wear herself out, so she could finally sleep.
It hadn’t worked.
