Page 74 of The Luckiest Lady in London

Part of her realized that his charm was being deployed with military precision, and the rest of her didn’t care. He’d been so good for so long; why should she cling to those most awful of memories? Why shouldn’t she stop doubting and let herself enjoy her good fortune?

London made it even easier to have a marvelous time. The great metropolis provided endless diversions. Besides attending the Royal Astronomical Society lectures and purchasing Christmas presents for her family, they spent long, leisurely afternoons at book dealers’, explored a fascinating exhibition of adding machines, and frequented music halls, the newer venues where a man could take his wife without worrying about her respectability.

Apparently her husband had, in his younger days, been to music halls of the more risqué variety, too.

“There was this one particularly memorable song. Do you know, according to its lyrics, what English gentlemen like to do?” he asked mischievously as they lay in bed together one night.

Louisa moved her head closer to his on the pillow. “What?”

“Play cricket, box, and torture cocks,” he said with a straight face.

“Oh, that is horrible!” she exclaimed. “Tell me another one.”

Which made him kiss her, chortling. And they stayed up deep into the night, laughing over all manner of naughty things.

When he got up to go to sleep in his own bed, she almost told him to stay. She didn’t, though she did take hold of his hand when he leaned down to kiss her good night—and only slowly let go.

At some point, she must think of the future. It was all very well and good to wall off her heart and plant signs that said, This close but no closer. But what if her husband had reformed? He had said nothing one way or the other, but his actions spoke loud and clear for themselves. In every sphere of their life together he had become an admirable partner; it seemed almost unfair to continue to withhold her greater affection from him for choices during one aberrant fortnight months ago.

It would be so much easier to thrive in this marriage without the constant weight of her cautions and suspicions.

Deep down, she wanted to trust him.

And always had.

* * *

Outside, wind howled and rain lashed at the window shutters. But inside, Felix and Louisa were warm and snug under the covers. The lamps and sconces of the room had been extinguished, but a fire still roared in the grate and its coppery light danced on the walls and glowed upon her smooth cheeks.

They lay on their sides, facing each other. He caressed the indentation of her waist. Her hand had been roving over his buttocks only a minute ago, quite freely and greedily, but now those same fingers played with her hair, making her look sweet and girlish.

“It’s been a while since I asked you this question, but I’m in the mood for it again,” she said. “So…why did you marry me?”

With a thud of his heart, he recognized the significance of the question. Much of her distrust must have arisen from the fact that from her point of view, he appeared to make major decisions for no logical reason—the foremost of which being, of course, his marriage.

Asking him to explain himself meant that she was willing to reexamine her prejudices against him.

If only he didn’t actually deserve those prejudices.

He pushed away the thought—some things she didn’t need to know.

“I didn’t want you to have to marry your butcher,” he began with a partial truth. “You didn’t sound as if you were too thrilled with the idea.”

She made a face. “So you were just being charitable?”

“Hardly. Every day of my bachelorhood, women married for reasons that did not thrill them and I did not make them my concern. You mattered because I didn’t want you to be nice to the butcher in bed. And since you insisted only a man who married you could have the privileges I wanted…”

She grazed the ends of a strand of hair against her jawline. “What if I tell you that you showed your hand far too soon? If I couldn’t find another means of support, eventually I would have agreed to your initial offer—it was hardly certain that Mr. Charles would have been willing or able to take in Matilda.”

He had her brush the palm of his hand with the same strand of hair; it tickled pleasantly. “I took that into account. If not the butcher, there would still be a lawyer, an accountant, or a greengrocer waiting somewhere in the wings, with matrimony on his mind. What man with an ounce of sense wouldn’t want to marry you?”

She looked away for a moment, as if embarrassed by his compliment. “If I understand you correctly, you married me because you wanted me too much to take the risk that someone else might come along and waltz me to the altar.”

“And if your next question is why, if I wanted you so much, I stopped sleeping with you right after our wedding night, the answer is, I didn’t like realizing just how much I wanted you.”

It was the closest he had ever come to admitting this particular wrinkle of his psyche.

She considered his confession, her index finger resting against her cheekbone. “Does that mean you’ve since learned how to want me less?”