Etiquette With The Devil (32 page)

“Come on now,” he shouted. Bly caught up to her easily, but she did not stop. She needed to get as far away from him as possible. “Why the sour mood?”

“Leave me alone!” she snapped.

He gripped her shoulder and swung her around to face him. She looked up, startled, at his quick grasp of her.

“Bly,” she warned. “Let me go.”

“Answer me one thing.” His eyes were dark, his voice suddenly sober.

If she were being honest with herself, which she rarely was when Bly was concerned, she would admit that he looked very handsome in his riding attire. He looked virile and flushed from the afternoon’s excursions. His lips looked incredibly kissable. Most damning of all—his attention was meant in kindness and she hated him for it.

“What?” she asked. There was no point in politeness. She pulled herself free and squared her shoulders.

“I don’t understand what has changed between us.”

She tried his words on her lips, feeling their bruising power. “Nothing has changed at all.” That was not true—everything had changed between them.

“Are you sure? I believe something has changed. You can’t stand being around me.”

“I am polite to you.”

“I don’t want your politeness, Clara.”

“Then what do you want?” she shot back.

“I want to…that is, I would like to know if—”

“If what?” she challenged again.

“You’re damn prickly today.” His brow furrowed. “Very well.” He turned to walk away, but Clara was not satisfied. He succeeded in making her angry and she would not see him escape a fight with her. Perhaps he would finally leave her alone after they did have a row.

“No, please continue,” she prodded. “I am interested in what you have to say on the matter of
us
, as you say.” Her words dripped with bitterness.

“You can’t stand the sight of me.”

She leaned back, her hand settling on her chest. “I could before?”

“You made no objections to me being in your sickroom.”

“I was unable to move. Escape was not possible.”

“Escape? Am I that awful?” He stretched out his palm toward her and sighed. “No, don’t answer that.”

“I cannot stand the sight of you,” she said, ignoring his plea. “I am well now. I do not need you to coddle me. I would prefer you leave me alone, in fact. I will look for a new position with another family. It’s no longer appropriate for me to be here now that you have returned. The village is full of enough gossip…”

He took an angry step forward and grasped her arms in his hands. Clara quirked an eyebrow, urging him on. She would show him that he meant nothing to her, even if that was not the truth.

“You’ve grown cold and bitter,” he said in a menacing voice. “I don’t believe a word you say.”

“I don’t care if you believe me, Bly. If you would like gratitude for your care of me while I was ill, then thank you. I never asked you to act as my nurse.”

“I never sought after your appreciation. I was there because—”

“Why? From guilt? Responsibility?” she cut in. Her voice had grown heated; the air wheezed within her chest, painful.

“Damn you, Clara.”

She laughed at that. “You can take your hands off me now.”

“What do you need from me? A flowery speech?” He released her from his hold. “For me to get down on my knees and beg?”

She continued her cold stare, refusing to speak.

“I apologized,” he ground out.

Tears pricked her eyes, but she would never allow him the satisfaction of seeing how he affected her. “I have made peace with the past. I do not need an apology to move forward. I do not seek to be in your good opinion, nor do I wish to be in your company longer than necessary. I am happy,” she found herself almost to the point of yelling, but refrained, dropping her voice. “For the first time in my miserable life, I have found people who need…and love me. I have the love of Rhys. That is all I need.”

Bly stepped forward; Clara fell back a few steps.

He reached for her and she stumbled backward. “Tell me, if you are truly as happy as you say, why did my aunt abandon you?”

“It was a kindness, Bly. I should have been dismissed and left to fend for myself. Shunned for the sin I committed.”

“Kindness? The house is as much a mess as I found it three years ago. The window in your pathetic excuse for a room wouldn’t shut, and there was a hole in the rafters above to the roof. Don’t think I haven’t seen the rags you stuffed there to try to keep warm. That’s where I found you.” Bly’s anger shot to the surface.

“I was forced,” she continued, fighting back the urge to slap him, “to tell your aunt that I would no longer be able to stay in my post when I learned I was with child. She wanted me gone, of course.”

Breathing was becoming impossible, but she pressed on, her voice soft and full of emotion. It did not help that he made a choking sound in his throat. She never wanted to see his reaction to this news. “I was forced to deal with that humiliation. I stayed on b-but I—”

Bly rushed forward and braced his hands on her arms, knocking the words from her lips. Clara tried to pull herself free but he did not loosen his grip. He only pulled her tighter against his body, only strengthened his grip around her shoulders until there was no space, no air between them, and his lips came crashing down onto hers.

His lips moved over hers with purpose—licking and sucking until she had no choice but to open her mouth and welcome the caress of his tongue and hold her steady as her legs wobbled. Her shoulders writhed and she made an undignified response in the back of her throat, desperate for him to stop, but Bly was merciless. He kissed her vehemently until her body stilled and instinctively melted against his.

Clara realized then that he had won.

He refused to admit his affections and so did she, so their words left them once more at an impasse, but their kiss betrayed them both as soon as she kissed him back. Minutes passed before the spinning stopped and she caught up to her traitorous heart. Her hands moved slowly up between them, pushing against his chest in a perfect mirror as his hands moved from her waist and curled around the back of her head.

He gazed down at her appraisingly and loosened his grip, just as she struck her hand across his face.

“I was wrong,” he said, his fingers tracing over her handprint.

Her body shook and her chest heaved as it struggled for air. Her whole body felt as if it were sparking. Bly massaged his red cheek.

“Entirely,” she leveled as she grabbed her dropped basket and stormed back toward the house.

Of course, he was wrong about nothing. In fact, he had been very right in all of his assumptions, but she refused to tell him the truth. Confessing such would mean he had her heart once more and she was not prepared to surrender that again, especially to him.

*

It looked as if someone took to the sky with a set of watercolors as the day’s light waned through the windows.

There was little which could distract Clara from the quarrel she had with Bly that afternoon. She neglected to join the others for dinner. She would go to the nursery later when the rest of the house settled away for the evening. She would hide under her bed if she had to, if only she could escape Bly and his questions.

Clara had passed the last hour staring blankly at the bouquet on her desk. She flicked a petal of a peony blossom, inhaling the sickening perfume until she was dizzy. She pulled a daisy from the vase next, plucking a petal off with the passing minutes or hours; she could not tell, really. She should start looking for another position, she thought, as she plucked free another petal.

“I thought to ask something while out on our walk earlier, but it was clear you didn’t want to be in my company.”

She nervously plucked another petal free. Then, as the anger rolled over her toward Bly for having invaded her only haven, she plucked three more in quick succession. “And you believe I do now?”

“No.” Bly paused with his hand on the doorway, his brow furrowed. He shut the door, none too quietly, and took another step. “No,” he continued, “it’s quite clear that you don’t wish to see me, but this is a matter that can’t wait.”

“What’s so pressing? Tormenting me once today wasn’t enough?”

“I’ve come to ask for your hand in marriage,” he said in a voice that was not quite his own.

Clara pushed away from the desk too quickly and knocked the vase over, shattering the fine porcelain to pieces. The flowers lay heaped, their broken petals drowning in a puddle of water amongst shards of something that was once beautiful. Fitting.

“If this is because of what I told you—”

“No,” he said firmly. Bly cleared his throat before he continued. “Perhaps we should speak of… that.”

“No, we will not speak of
that,
” Clara retorted, feeling her temper rise. “Your aunt almost robbed me of my son. I wish to never speak of it again.”

“Pardon?”

His confusion shortened Clara’s temper further. She had meant to keep that secret and now he knew the truth, the absolute truth, and that was perhaps worse than what she had told him in the garden.

He walked with slumped shoulders to rest his hands over on the fire mantle. “Explain,” he said, still keeping his back to her. “Please.”

“I said I will not speak of it further. Leave me alone.”

“I have a right to know. If she did as you just admitted, than she almost robbed me of a child as well. I wish to know how it happened.”

“What does it matter now?” Clara asked, wrapping her arms around herself as her voice grew louder.

“It matters to me, Clara,” he said, striding across the room. He stopped short as she shied from his outstretched hand.

“Don’t,” she warned, drawing back against the door. Hysteria swept through her, constricting around her heart as her lips trembled.

“After you left, I discovered myself with child,” Clara whispered. “And when it was a certainty, I went to your aunt to resign from the post and take my leave. She guessed the reason for my hasty decision, and when she discovered I was carrying your child, she stopped her nasty name-calling and treated me kindly. She told me that I could remain and keep my post as governess. She assured me that she would offer whatever protection I needed.”

Bly stood, his eyes locked with hers in a resolute firmness that felt as if she were a one-winged butterfly on display, broken but beautiful all the same.

“When I took tea with her that night, I thought nothing of how she pushed me to drink. I thought nothing of how she smiled sweetly or how her ill opinion of me had changed. I thought that in your aunt I had found someone who would stand by me. Only, I found a bitter woman set on destroying your family. She poisoned me. She has confessed as much since. She poisoned me to…” Clara faltered, angry tears now running down her face. “She tried to rob me of hope. She tried to take Rhys away from me. Without him, I have nothing.”

She pressed her body tight against the glass as he attempted to comfort her. She wouldn’t have it. The very smell of him in that instant was driving her to a brink of madness.

“I never wanted for you to know,” she whispered. She stuck her hand in her mouth and bit down, trying to gain composure over her frayed nerves.

“Clara, love, let me touch you.”

“Don’t call me that. I don’t want to hear that endearment pass over your lips again.”

“This is hard for me to hear. Come here.”

At that, Clara laughed and brushed away her tears with a fisted hand. “Don’t you understand? To force me into marriage makes you no better than any other person in my life.”

“I can provide for you. I can protect you.”

“I am not looking to be bought. I want love, however foolish that idea may be for me to cling to, that is my one wish. I will fight for that choice. And how am I ever expected to love you if you take that away and force me into a union I do not wish for?”

“In time, perhaps there could be something civil between us.”

“You BROKE my heart!” she yelled, slamming her hand against the window. Once the roaring beat lulled in her ears, Clara lowered her voice to a shaky whisper. “You’re going to kill me.”

“Don’t say that. I want to do what is right. I wronged you, and I wish to fix it. I want to protect you and Rhys. I want to—”

“I am more than another obstacle for you to surmount. I am more than—” Clara stopped. She did not wish to be a means to an end, but where else was she to go if she refused? She was a fallen woman with a child and no references. “If you must,” she whispered, a sour taste swimming in her mouth.

Bly smiled, grabbing for her hand, but she withdrew and turned back to the window.

“I know you weren’t asking.” She pressed her forehead to the cold glass, her fingers spreading out before her, hoping to grasp a future other than the one before her.

“No,” he answered from the door.

“No,” she echoed, closing her eyes tight.

T
wo weeks later, Clara stood beside Bly to be married.

She had been ill three times since waking up from nerves. She had smiled when Molly and Tilly helped her into the new wedding gown from London. She had laughed as Minnie and Grace danced about in their new frocks, giggling with excitement. She had even broken into tears as James and Rhys escorted her on the short walk down to the library.