This felt like an unnecessary detour, honestly, and he wondered how he could endure the wait. But regardless of what she had or had not managed today, it would always be her choice what to say and when to say it. He could only wait. It was the least he could do after not asking until now, after simply assuming. He’d assumed she’d had a youthful love affair. He’d assumed their passion was mutual. The alternative was unbearable to him, but he would wait to hear of it on her terms.
Except, God help him, for one detail that could not go unaddressed right here, right now.
“But Tessa,” he said, “there is one thing I must say, even in the boot room. You mentioned something about... about accepting ‘the rising tide of my passion,’ and I want to be perfectly clear.”
She went stiff in his arms, bracing herself, and he swore in his head. He would not make it worse. He forged ahead. “Any affection between you and I, Tessa, will be a mutual endeavor—something that we both experience. You are not beholden to the rising tide of—of any part of me. I’ve never compelled a woman to... want me in this way, and I’ll be damned if I start now. Do you understand?”
Tessa considered this, nodding finally with an impatient sigh. She sounded a little weary of heartfelt lectures. Joseph had grown weary of them too. And he was so very weary of the bloody boot room.
“Right. Up you go,” he said, hustling her up and shoving from the bench. “Let us find somewhere more comfortable in the house. After seeing the glories of the cellar, you’ll not be surprised to learn that I know the perfect spot.”
He tugged his demolished cravat from his neck. When he glanced at her, she was gathering up the long curtain of your hair.
“Your hair is glorious,” he said. He could not stop. “I adore it.”I adore you,he added in his head.
He looked again and saw her smile, a true smile, the first authentic gladness—delight for the sake of delight—since they’d entered the house.
I want to delight you,he thought.I want the chance to make you smile every day.
But first, I hear what I should have been told from the beginning.
First, I hear what terrible thing has been done to you.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tessa allowed Joseph to lead her, first up a sweeping, curved staircase, and then up two more flights. At last, he drew her into a tiny attic corridor lined with servant’s rooms.
“You’re enjoying the behind-the-scenes service tour of this house, lucky girl,” he joked. “Very exclusive. Given only to the most esteemed guests.”
“Did you occupy one of these rooms, before the earl moved you to the family wing?”
“I did, in fact. And, let me guess—you wish to see.” He winked at her. “I have noticed your keen interest in my days of service, by the way, so do not feign ambivalence. You aren’t the first gentleman’s daughter to have a taste for a strapping manservant like myself.”
Tessa laughed. He was so very clever. He saw the irony and ridiculous in most things and didn’t hesitate to name them. He teased but without meanness. She’d laughed more at his comments and observations than any man she’d known, and her brothers were prodigiously funny.
Joking aside, she knew the climb up four stairwells was designed as a distraction. He was calming her. He was allowing her to compose herself and the words she would say. He understood the challenge posed by telling him.
And the challenge for him to hear it? He didn’t address this. Another man might threaten or demand, he might force her to report exactly what he wanted to know. Or he might lock it down, declare it in the past and forgotten.
Not Joseph Chance. She felt more in love with every step of the stairwell. She floated behind him.
“Are you certain we are welcome to prowl every level of the earl’s home when they are away?”
“Quite certain,” Joseph called over his shoulder. They’d come to a small rounded door at the end of the attic corridor, curved at the top like a mouse hole. He tested the knob, found it locked, and then felt around on the transom of an adjacent doorway. He came back with a key, unlocked the small door, and ushered her through.
She was immediately hit with the crisp, smoky air of London in September. Sunlight shone from an opening at the top of yet another small flight of stairs.
“The rooftop?” she laughed.
“Why not?” he said. “You’ve seen the cellar. Might as well see the other end.”
He squeezed past her in the thin stairwell, pausing to steal a kiss, and she laughed again. She wanted to reach for him, to call him back. She wanted to say,But let us not go out. Let us avoid the brightness and cold. Let’s stay here, where it’s safe and dark.
But he was already gone, pulling her toward the sunlight. She followed him onto a square widow’s walk, large enough for only three or four people. The walk was lined with a high decorative border in shiny black iron.
All around them were rooftops and brick walls, church towers, and leafy squares of London. The city sky, so frequently shrouded by smoke and soot, shone blue today. The wind lifted Tessa’s loose hair, and she turned her face into it and laughed.
“Are you frightened of heights?” Joseph asked, wrapping an arm around her waist. “I don’t even know.”
