Mary opened the door.
Evander’s chambers were larger than hers, darker in palette, with heavy curtains and a four-poster bed she had never seen. A fire burned low in the grate. A single lamp sat on the bedside table, casting a warm circle of light that reached the edge of the bed and no further.
Evander stood beside the window in his shirtsleeves, his coat and cravat removed, and the lamplight caught the angles of his face and the tension in his shoulders.
He turned when she entered. His gaze moved over her, the loose hair, the nightgown, the bare feet on his carpet, and something crossed his expression that Mary could not name.
“You came,” he said.
“I told you I would.”
They stood on opposite sides of the room. The bed occupied the space between them, enormous and impossible, and the silence stretched until Mary could hear the fire popping and her own pulse beating in her throat.
“I do not know what to do.” Mary’s voice came out smaller than she intended. “You know that. I told you.”
“I know.” Evander crossed the room to her. Each step was slow, giving her time to stop him if she chose. He stopped in front of her, close enough that she could smell the soap he had used and the faint warmth of the fire on his skin. “We do not have to do anything you do not want. Not tonight. Not ever. Do you understand?”
Mary nodded. Her hands hung at her sides, and she did not know what to do with them. The absurdity of that, of standing in her husband’s bedroom after seven weeks of marriage and not knowing where to put her hands, made her want to laugh and cry at the same time.
Evander lifted his arms and drew her against his chest.
The embrace was slow and careful. His arms encircled her, one hand resting at the small of her back, the other cradling the back of her head, and he held her gently, firmly.
Mary’s hands found his shirt. She pressed her palms flat against his chest and felt his heartbeat, steady and strong beneath the linen, and the warmth of him soaked through the fabric and into her skin, and some of the trembling eased.
“There,” he murmured against her hair. “Just this, for now.”
Evander’s hand moved across her back in slow circles, and Mary’s forehead rested against his collarbone, and the room contracted to the circle of firelight and the sound of their breathing.
She could feel his pulse against her cheek. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest. She could feel the restraint in the way he held her, the discipline of a man who was allowing himself to touch her but was also controlling the terms with every muscle in his body.
He drew back enough to see her face. His hand came up and cradled her jaw, his thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone.
Mary’s eyes closed. His touch was gentle, and the tenderness of it ached.
At last, he kissed her.
His mouth found hers with a softness that made her chest ache. Slow. Unhurried. His hand held her face as though she were something precious, and Mary felt the contradiction in everybrush of his lips, tenderness offered by a man still trying not to mean it.
His body was warm and solid against hers.
But then, suddenly, without invitation, a word surfaced in her mind, her heart.
And it was the one that undid everything.
Love.I love this man, and this is the last time I will have him.
She pushed him away.
Evander stumbled back a step. His hands dropped. His expression shifted from openness to confusion in the space of a heartbeat.
“Mary—”
“Stop.” Her voice shook. Her whole body shook. She pressed her hands against her stomach and stepped back from him, one step, two, until the distance between them felt survivable. “I cannot do this.”
“If you are not ready, we can wait?—”
“I am not talking about tonight.” The words erupted from a place she had not known was full. “I am not talking about theact, Evander. I am talking about this. This arrangement. This transaction you proposed in my bedroom where you give me a child and walk away, and we go on living in this house like two strangers who happen to share an address and a last name.”
