She wanted Bex to love her. Then she wouldn’t feel so fretful, so vulnerable. Then she wouldn’t be concerned about him straying like Papa, or worse, abandoning her like Ruth’s beau had done.
Everything still ached from the lies and revelations. She smiled at her husband pacing and saying lines. He was the only one who hadn’t lied.
Her breath caught when Bex stretched and yanked off the remaining bandages. Bare from the waist up, he groaned as he flexed his shoulder. Another small moan ushered from him as he rotated his hurt arm. “Don’t fret, Ester. It’s better, just a little stiff.”
Having been caught gazing, she closed her eyes but remembered how she and Ruth had peeked at Papa’s workers through a knot in the floorboards at the warehouse—sweaty bulky arms in all shades, from beige to deep ebony, lifting crates and drying wool near the big furnaces.
Through her lashes, she glanced at Bex again. He was a sight to behold, tall with a lean stomach and solid muscles in his arms and chest. The bulky costumes of the stage hid much of his masculine beauty.
Bex moved to the fireplace. With his hurt hand, he clasped the onyx poker and stoked the flames. The odds his shoulder would be permanently lame had diminished. With no lasting damage from this escapade, Bex, a thing of beauty, would remain whole.
Ester tried to roll over, but she couldn’t help herself, watching him stir the fire and recite his lines. This was her husband. She had chosen him, and he’d chosen her. Could their attraction grow into something more? Could they both be faithful to their marital promises, even if they had been made under duress?
Bex came over to the bed. “Have you fallen asleep?”
“No.” Her pulse ticked up.
“Good. I won’t feel bad when I force you to scoot over.”
He sat on the side as she shuttled to the other edge.
The mattress wasn’t so big, so he’d be touchable. “You’re going to sleep in this bed?”
He slid on his nightshirt, grunting as he lifted his hurt arm. “That is where one sleeps.”
“But.”
He lay back and took the pillow from her. “And I hear that married couples do that all the time. It is a rumor. I haven’t confirmed it.” He touched her cheek. “Your skin does flame when you blush.”
When he moved back to his side, she missed his gaze upon her.
“Good night, Ester,” he said.
It took a moment to become used to the way the bed swayed when he moved, for he shifted the bedsheets and then ended up very near her side.
“Bex, you will do well as Antony. You have nothing to fear.”
His hand found hers, and he tugged her so that she shared the pillow. “There is always something to fear. Sometimes fear is good. It tells you what to value. Makes you hold on tight to the good in your life.”
“Well, Arthur Bex will be brilliant. On the nights I can go, I’ll be cheering for you. I’ll talk to my friend Frederica Burleigh. Her father, the Duke of Simone, lets us use his box.”
“Nights you can go? By us, you mean your friends Mrs. Fitzwilliam-Cecil and Miss Burleigh? You’ll have seats opening night, or maybe you can sit off stage.”
“No. No. I’ll be too nervous for you. I’d rather watch you like I always have, at a distance. You’ll be so great.”
He sat up, hovering over her, and was so close she could trace the curl of dark hair over the night shirt. If she sketched Greek statues, Bex could be an excellent one, and she was within touching distance, her to him, him to her.
“Ester?”
“Yes.” She blinked away her distraction by the muscular lines of his form. “Yes. Bex.”
“You want the truth, Ester, but I expect the same about anything I ask.”
She pulled at the blanket as if he could see through her robe. “Yes.”
“It’s not that you would be nervous for me. It’s that you don’t think you belong, and you are trying to protect me again, this time from the reaction of others.”
Ester closed her eyes for a moment. “This marriage cost me my family. I don’t want it to cost you your profession or your reputation. If Arthur Bex is destroyed because of his wife—I’d never forgive myself.”
