He was grateful to the women who took pains to show him what it meant to be a lover and not just a fucker. But the beauty and mystery of women’s bodies taught him that, too, because they begged for exploration. He savored the power to make a woman lose her mind with pleasure. He believed it ought to be an equal exchange.
He’d never considered that his own battered, orphaned,bastard hide might possess any specific intrinsic value to anyone because it containedhim. He knew he was good looking, and he understood that came with advantages. But when he thought about it at all, he’d assumed his worth was measured in how much money he had, or in what he could do for someone else. It hadn’t bothered him. He’d never known any different.
He hadn’t considered that his touch—histouch—could be a soul-baring gesture of radical trust. That the way he touched could be a confession. A gift freely given. He’d never before thought:I want to kissherthere in the hollow of her throat, so I can feelherpulse against my lips, feel the hum ofhermoan of pleasure, so I can savor the stunning miracle that this particular maddening, beautiful woman exists in the world at the same time that I do.
He’d never before thought:I want to watch her eyes go hazy when I trail my fingers over her skin. I want to watch the play of emotion and pleasure on her face as we make love.
In the cozy, loving confines of this room, he was forced to think about all of that now.
When he touched her that way, there was no way Ginny wouldn’t know that he loved her.
And God help him, he understood now what a gift that trust was.
He wanted her trust, freely given.
But he also wanted her to be able to choose to whom she gave it.
He wanted to be chosen.
He had never once been chosen in quite that way. Not in his entire life.
He wanted to be naked with her in every sense of theword. Equal. Not as part of a financial transaction involving a giver and a taker. He wanted tosharewith her something entirely new.
In so doing, for the first time, he would be in some ways as innocent as she was.
His heart ached for the girls in St. Giles who had never had that choice.
He also understood devastation lay on the other side of it. Because after he made love to her, he would need to let her go. And she would take a piece of him with her.
He hadn’t lied. She would indeed ruin him. For any other woman.
He’d considered as he stood there in the garden just telling her that he’d go ahead and strike the four-thousand-pound debt from his books. But what if she thought he was willing to pay any pricenotto have sex with her? Very darkly amusing.
And then... and then she’d tested him yet again.
Now he was curious about her motives.
He thought he understood why she’d taken that one last risk.
He loved that about her as much as he rued it. She was never boring, that girl.
And if he was right about her reasons, it meant for him a glimmer of hope that he hardly dared nurture.
Ah, Guinevere, sweetheart, he thought.Just as I told you before that I wouldn’t let you ruin me, I also told you that no one ever gets the better of me.
And so, though he was as afraid now as he’d ever been in his life, he harbored one spark of hope.
He knew there really was no other way to know the truth for sure.
He was going to need to call her bluff.
Little battles of both the overt and covert varieties raged all over the sitting room that night.
While Dot indecisively twiddled a pawn between her fingers and hummed tunelessly, Mr. Delacorte waged a heroic inner battle against the urge to bellow “Justmovethe bloody thing!” But if shedidmove the bloody thing, he would win a rook. Which on the one hand would be satisfying—who didn’t like winning a rook? But on the other hand would be maddening, because he’d explained several times that sheshouldn’tleave her rook exposed like that. And Dot would then be crushed. And he would feel as though he’d failed as a teacher. What would they call him when he became a martyr? St. Stanton, his first name? Or St. Delacorte? He imagined himself depicted on tapestries in churches, riding a donkey.
At the opposite end of the room, Mrs. Pariseau, Delilah, and Angelique were earnestly debating what book they ought to read aloud tonight, while Delilah’s conscience continued wrestling with the fact that she hadn’t yet told Mrs. Peck that she’d shouted “Shite!” in front of her son. Like a draft or a leak, she sensed the longer it remained unattended, the worse it would get.
Mrs. Peck had not yet brought Daniel down for a nightly visit.
