Chapter Seventeen
Stoker had done many things in service to Elisabeth Courtland’s sponsorship through the years. He sweltered in waistcoats and strangled in neck cloths; he passed mind-numbing twenty-course meals among stupefying lesser royalty; he learned French. But one thing he had never done—one thing that never occurred to him to do—was attend a ball. As a guest. Who... reveled.
Oh, he had lurked around Courtland events, but he’d never loaded his plate from the heaping buffet like a starving man or gambled irresponsible sums in the smoky card rooms. Certainly, he had never danced.
And yet now here he was, descending the steps to the Courtlands’ glowing ballroom withhis wifeon his arm.
“Are you in pain?” Sabine asked, glancing at him.
“No,” he said. “That is, not because of my wound.” Actually, his wound was more like a scab now, and the only residual pain was from the broken ribs. He was fit enough to be at a ball or anywhere else for that matter—except that he resented trussed-up society functions. He had nothing to contribute to female gossip or male boasting. He was bored almost immediately and appalled by the dancing (how did full-grown men keep a straight face as they hopped in a line?).
“Can you untwist your face, perhaps?” Sabine whispered. “You look as if I’m leading you to a funeral pyre.”
“Would that you were,” he sighed. “I haven’t the slightest idea what we’re to do now that we’ve come. Is it typical to feel oddly conspicuous and gratingly idle? Like we’re wasting time and showing off all at once?”
“If we are conspicuous, then we’re on task. Everyone hopes to be noticed at a ball.”
Stoker thought Sabine would be impossible not to notice in her elegant, cherry-red silk gown and golden gloves. He’d seen a dozen men turn to follow her with their eyes, jackals watching unassuming prey, and he’d felt a pang of possessiveness so acute, he’d almost slid his arm around her waist and hauled her against him. But good sense prevailed, and he scowled at the room in general and the men in particular. Sabine carried on not knowing or not caring, wholly focused on identifying her suspected ship owner, Phineas Legg.
“How will we identify your illustrious Mr. Legg if we don’t ask?” Stoker said.
“Pray do not forget that Legg isn’t the only reason we’ve come. The Duke of Wrest accepted Bryson’s invitation, so we shall get a look at him too.”
“We’re not approaching the Duke of Wrest,” he told her.
“Ifwe approach either of them,” she went on, “we must blend in with the other guests. Never fear. I shall navigate for us. You may rely on me.”
He glanced at her, wondering if she realized how completely he had allowed himself torely on herin these past five weeks, more than he’d ever relied on anyone in his life, even his business partners. Not for clinical care: she was an average nurse at best, despite having saved his life. But he had grown to rely on her presence, her nearness, her attention. He’d discovered delicious insights into her personality to which he’d not been privy. He knew now that she was reliably diligent, up early each morning; amusingly disordered, with strewn paperwork amid drafting tools and half-eaten apples; she was fiercely loyal to her dog; she was clever—so very clever—and bossy. He awakened each morning, straining to hear the sound of her footsteps on the stairs or whipping open the door. He fell asleep after hours of conversation and long, silent stretches, where they stared into the fire.
He’d stored away every memory, every nuance, forafter, when he was fully recovered, and this business with the smuggling was settled, and she was restored to Park Lodge in Surrey and he was... and he was... on to whatever his next act would be.
A more prudent man might have tried to curtail the slavish sort of attachment he’d allowed himself to develop for her—torely on her—but honestly, he didn’t care. So what if he admired her? So what if he thought of her to the exclusion of anything else? His proximity to her was worth any prideful restraint. Worse, his proximity to her was fleeting. He would not remain in her bedroom forever. He was in love with her. This truth had hit him like a boulder to the chest late one evening after she’d gathered up her notes and the supper tray and bustled from the room.Come back,he wanted to call after her.Not yet.I’m dying, even as you heal me day by day.
I love every moment that we are together.
I love... I love...
I love you.
His love had become such a fundamental truth, the admission didn’t even alarm him. It felt, in fact, more settling to simply acknowledge it.
He loved her, but he was not stupid with love. He knew they would part ways. Another settling acknowledgment: He should savor her while he could.
Savor her at an arm’s length, of course. Always and above everything else—perhaps his greatest achievement. By some great miracle, he wasnotguilty of taking her virtue or pawing her body. His desire for her, which seemed to intertwine itself with his love for her, confused and unnerved and worried him. He worked, daily, to tap down his persistent, driving need to touch her.
He laughed now, thinking he’d been tempted by the impersonal annual exchanges of previous years. These were nothing compared to spending hours every night talking, listening to her laugh, watching her face as he told her stories of his life at sea.
The days of merely savoring theideaof Sabine Noble were an afterthought; now he bloodyknewher. He knew her wit and her artistry. He knew what she found ridiculous and what pricked her fierce sympathy. And he knew how she looked at the end of a long day, when she had burrowed herself into the chair beside his bed, long legs doubled up beneath her skirt, stockinged feet poking out, chin resting on her knees. And her hair—God, her hair—falling down from whatever hasty twist or braid that had survived the day but finally slipped free.
“Look, there are the Courtlands,” Sabine exclaimed now, nodding to a bunting-draped alcove, thick with potted palms. “Let us say hello and thank them. And then we will eat something. We’ll get a broad view of who is here and also save you from dancing.”
“I will not dance,” he vowed, not for the first time. She’d tucked her gloved hand so tightly around his biceps, he could feel the shape of her fingers. The lushness of her body pressed against his; her skirts lapped at his leg as they walked.
He glanced at her, hoping that she hadn’t noticed he was overwhelmingly aware of every bat of her eye, every swipe of her hand. Other men, he knew, did not nearly incinerate at any idle touch from their wives. He would die if she knew he went nearly out of his mind when she touched his arm. She smiled up at him and Stoker jerked his head away. She was easily the most beautiful woman in this ballroom, likely the most beautiful woman in London, and it almost hurt him to look at her.
But it hurt worse not to touch her. Toreallytouch her. To this end, a bloody ball was actually quite useful. Three hundred revelers closed in on all sides. Candles shone, food and drink kept them occupied. Beyond her escort on his arm, it would be impossible to touch her. The cellar bedroom had been a different story, and he’d fought a daily battle with his mounting—nay, avalanching—physical attraction to her. So deep was his desire for her, he could feel the sharp points of it sinking into his very bones, the heavy pressure of it expanding inside him. He would die for wanting her, he thought.
And so he had frightened her instead. The words had come out before he’d known it, but they had worked. The most reliable safeguard against his desire that he knew: threatening her with the truth. He’d used language coarse enough to offend a veteran sailor and swore to her what would happen if she continued to press. It was a sharp nail in the door to her curiosity, and it hit his mark. She’d not asked again. He’d been shocked that she’d not disappeared for another week, but she’d carried on sharing dinners, asking him about her investigation, and allowing him to fall deeper in love. His baseness and his darkness and his raw, pounding need were his own cross to bear.
