“Yes, atop the dresser.”
He moved and found a small stack of neatly folded cotton handkerchiefs.
When he turned back, however, he found her studying her hand.
“I am sorry,” he repeated.He couldn’t help it.
“It’s wonderful,” she said with a crooked little smile.
“Here, please,” he said, handing her the handkerchief, feeling tremendously embarrassed and also still burning with pleasure.She cleaned her hand then, but she seemed almost reluctant to do so.
He stood above the bed now, uncertain of what he should do with himself.He didn’t know what to do after such a moment, never having shared one like it before.
“Come back,” she said, depositing the soiled handkerchief on the bedside table.
He wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, but he couldn’t resist being closer to her.Not after that.
He obeyed her command, sliding his body next to hers.She was so precious, he observed, her body plump and yet also compact.She made the best contrast to him, with his height and breadth.He couldn’t imagine wanting to lie with any woman who looked or felt different from her.
“Thank you,” she said, looking up at him.“I know you must think me terribly wanton.”
He shook his head.“No.”
“Truly?”
“I am merely surprised.That you would want to—to do such a thing.With me.”
She gave a little laugh.“Why?”
“I do not think of myself as the type of man that women want to do such things with.I know I am not—my manners are not engaging.Especially to a woman such as yourself.Who is used to the men of London.”
“I find you more charming than the men of London.”
“I’m sure you didn’t when you first met me.”
She smiled.“No, not perhaps then.But now it is different.”She paused.“I know how you feel, though.I do not see myself as the type of woman that men desire.”
He scoffed at that.“False modesty does not suit you, Miss Perkins.”
She raised her brows and laughed.“There is nothing false about it!Do you think that plump spinsters of eight-and-twenty are popular in Mayfair?”
He frowned, trying to work out what she meant.“But you’re beautiful,” he finally said, unable to untangle this riddle.
She laughed.“No, I am not.”
“I have already told you what I think on that score.”
“That is very unusual.I think you’re possibly the only man who has ever thought that of me.”
“That cannot be.You said you were engaged.Before.”
He had been unable to ignore that piece of information that she had let drop.It had filled him with an intense, horrible jealousy.He hated the idea that some man had come close to possessing her fully.
“That was a long time ago.And it wasn’t that type of match.He was a clerk for my father.I think he saw the engagement to me as smart business.I was suitable enough—as a wife and a future.But he did not love me for my own self.”
“It is good you broke with him, then.”
“I didn’t,” she said with a little, bitter laugh.
