Soft and plump, I respond. I think I do.
She tastes salty like tears, not sweet. These sensations in my body must be the wild-lettuce tea. Except this time, I don’t mind the fantasy.Seduce me, rusalka. Take my life, making love with you.“I want this.”
The intimacy deepens, but Katia breaks our kiss. “Jahleel, forgive me. I want to be your mistress, but I mustn’t overstep. You could barely speak a few moments ago. Tell me clearly what you wish.”
I grasp a lock of her hair and twist it between my fingers. “Yes, a half-dead man can’t willingly succumb to a passionate invitation.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Actually I haven’t a clue. You hate me, you defraud me, you lie to my face and yet you kiss me like all those actions were the lie.”
“I wanted to hate you. I needed to justify everything I’d done. I shouldn’t have left you in St. Petersburg. When we returned to London—”
“We?” I force out the question.
“My guardians and Tavis. They told me awful things, but I chose to believe them. When I saw how the papers crucified you because you are Russian and part Blackamoor, I knew newspapermen would make me a spectacle. My skin is too dark to be your public wife.”
She’s olive, but not as deeply brown as my beautiful mother. “I’m proud of Mamen’ka’s coloring. It’s the clearest link to our Gannibal heritage.”
Tears spill onto my fingertips. “Jahleel, how dowefix everything? Please tell me. You always have a plan.”
Don’t care about fixing a thing. My attention remains focused on something I hadn’t felt in months: desire. Perhaps that gets fixed without heavy doses of laudanum.
Loosening the white ties to her apron, I toss it away. Then I push at cloth and expose her thighs. If that foot … if I could touch … “Get closer to me. We always fit together.”
“We do. We should forever. Let’s remarry. Or maybe we still are. This time we proclaim the union to the world.”
I kiss along her jaw. “We decided against that. I thought the new plan was for me to be entertained while I find you a husband?”
Her kisses land on my knuckles. Then she whispers, “That wasn’t a well thought out plan and now with all these feelings, I’m not so sure.”
The same feelings she discarded?
“Let me be a proper wife to you.”
Proper? Mattress. Thigh. Damp. Feet nakedly dangling against my shin.
Damp. Did I say that aloud?
“Please Jahleel. We could be good together, again. We—”
“And mother to Lydia? My daughter. The only seed of my loins that lives, lives with the sickness you ran from.Nyet.”
All the blood drains from her cheeks. “I … I forget myself. You haven’t agreed to allow me as your mistress. Though I am Lydia’s mother.”
Katherine kisses me again, but it’s not the same as before. The urges die because I doubt her sincerity. It’s all for the best. We might forgive each other, but I can’t give her what she truly craves: a guarantee of forever. My child can’t either.
“Jahleel. Tell me what you want me to do next. I’m doing too much talking or wishing aloud.”
MaybeIshould wish out loud. “If I live past tonight, I will get a new husband for you and a new wife for me.”
Her hands still. Terror fills her eyes. “No. Why a new wife?”
“All those years, I didn’t know I had a daughter to protect. I need an heir to protect Lydia. A son who will become the Duke of Torrance and oversee his sister’s interest, especially as she fights this sickness.”
“You’ve not married all this time. And now you think a new wife is the solution because of Lydia? Your own barrister produced papers that say we’re still married.”
“So you want me to be a fool, an adulterer or a bigamist?”
