Price of Desire (28 page)

For a moment she wasn’t sure she would answer
.
She should just get up and stalk around him into the house
.
No matter the passion they
had
shared, he had no right to her private thoughts.

“Yes and no.
”
She could barely hear her own voice.

He moved closer
until
she could feel his breath enclose her.

“I did choose him because he offered escape
.
I could not abide in my parent’s home any longer
.
The battles with my stepmother threatened to swallow me
.
But, from the first time I looked into his eyes
,
I found something I’d never seen before.”

“Money
and position
.”

Wh
y must he always misjudge
her
?
She bit her lip and resisted the urge to snap back
.
They needed to talk
,
not argue
.

“No, I know that most people looked at the marriage of an eighteen year-old girl to a retired admiral and assumed it was the common trade of money and station for youth and beauty
.
What they never understood was the deep and abiding bond between us.”

Wulf didn’t say anything
.
She couldn’t fully make out his features as he stood back from the moonlight
.
She let her head fall back and stared up at the stars as she continued,
“
The first time I looked into John’s eyes, I found an acceptance and understanding that I had never experienced before
.
John saw to the core of me, to the shy girl wanting to try my wings, to the eager student frustrated by the boundaries of my sex, and to the woman who wanted to care for all those around me
.
It all sounds overly dramatic, but he simply understood me and let me be
.
That was worth more than all the king’s jewels could ever purchase
.
I would have married him if he’d been a penniless vicar and counted myself lucky.

“I don’t know if you can imagine how closed the world can be for a girl
.
I’d known relative freedom as a child and then my father remarried
.
Mary, my stepmother, did everything she could to turn me into a blank-faced little doll
.
Sometimes I thought I was punished just for thinking.”

Wulf remained in the shadows, but his voice pulled at her
.
“No, I cannot say I’ve ever been punished for thinking – even in the army
.
You seem to have managed well despite the – hardship.”

If only she could see his expression
.
Did his voice sound with compassion or mockery
?
It should be possible to tell, but his tone was so flat, so careful.

She pulled h
er shawl about her and let her words flow again, “
It was
only his death that had made me fully
understand how special his gifts had been
.
He’d taught me
how to manage his estates
and then given them over to my
care when his illness debilitated him.
”
She paused, and then resumed, her own voice carefully even
.
“He was
the sweetest and most
considerate of bedmates
.
He spent hours teaching me
the most intricate battle strategies and never demurred or suggested the
details were too bloody for my
delicate ears
.
He’
d even laughingly encouraged me
t
o try fencing lessons.

“And he
listened
.
That simple courtesy
may have
been his greatest
gift
.
For the first time in my
life, a man
took me
seriously and credited
me
with a mind.

“I will
never go back to
what
I was before we m
et
.
I refuse to let his death diminish the woman he made me.”

Wulf did
not answer, but
he stepped forward, his head bent
.
He stood there, inches from her, their breaths mingling
.

“
I
s he why you cry?”

His words spoken after the long pause caught her off guard.

“No
.
I do miss him, every single day
.
But, it was not his memory that brought my tears.”

“Why then?

For the first time she
lifted her
face
to
him
.

“I am not sure
.
I cry for what isn’t, but that makes no sense.”

“I would like to disagree, my lady.
”
For the first time the title did not sound an insult
.
“I cannot, though
.
I really do not know what you mean.”

What was he thinking
?
He sounded so gentle, so much the man she had dreamed of on their first encounter
.
She steeled herself
.
She would not be fooled
.
She had heard his anger and fury and knew better than to risk
.
Her own desire to believe could not be trusted.

“It matters not
.
I am just melancholy
–
lonely
.
Have you ever been surrounded by people and yet felt all alone.
”
She smiled bitterly, expecting no answer
.

“Yes, I have been lonely
.
Stood in a field full of men and been alone.”

She closed her eyes against his understanding.

He continued, “It was thoughts of you, of what we had that kept me sane
.
I hated you, but cherished the memory, the magic of it.”

She bowed her head
, again
, fastened her gaze on the ground
.
“But the magic is gone.
”
He stepped closer, and lifted a hand, a finger brushed her cheek
.
She held firm, would not be swayed
.
“
It was only a dream
.
You made that clear at the funeral and then again on your arrival here
.
Every word you speak tells of your disdain of me
.
Yes, t
he passion is still there, the fire and burning – but where is
the missing
–
I don’t even know what it was
–
but I was not alone that summer day.”

His hand dropped and she
felt him turn away from her
.
He took a step away
.
She imagined he stared up at the endless sky
.
He did not deny her words.

She filled her lungs with the crisp evening air
.
“The hour is late and I should turn in
.
I must be up early.”

It would be her only chance to play with Anna
.
She turned her face
back to the shadows
, scared her thoughts would show
.
She could not think of Anna and him together
.
Her chest constricted at the very thought.

“Marry me.
”

The word whispered around her, seeping into her very pores
.
She knew the tears still streaked her face and yet still more welled in her eyes.

“I can’t.”

He had moved towards her again, his heat embracing her, letting her know that she was not alone
.

“Marry me.
”

It was almost a prayer.

“Please don’t ask this of me
.
It’s not what either of us wants
.
Or needs.”

He stepped back then and the cold of the evening wove between them, separating them by more than space
.
For the first time the moon caught his features
.
His eyes gleamed coolly in the pale light and Rose knew she must have mistaken the warmth of his voice.

“How dare you presume to know what I would want or need
?
You know nothing of me and never have.
”
The gentleness was gone
.
“If you had known me four years ago you would never have brought me to betray my honor
.
Never placed us in this position where all I can do is offer for you.”

“You never bothered to ask more than my name
.
I may have not told all, but I would never have lied
.
You cared only for your pleasure.”

“You can say that now
.
I have tortured myself enough over the years with the guilt of the questions I did not ask, but who knows what would have happened if you had mentioned a husband.”

Rose wanted to slap the bitter words from his mouth, to lay her palm hard against his bristled cheek
.
But, he spoke only the truth
.
She’d thought only of herself on that hot afternoon, not of what it might cost him.

She conjured up the image of him lying back against the stones with Anna cradled across the crisp linen of his shirt
.
She bit down on her lip and turned her own face into the shadows
.

“None of that matters
.
I cannot marry you
.
You are not what I need in a husband
.
I am sorry
.
I truly do wish I could give you what you want, but you yourself have just made it clear how things stand between us
.
You do not want me.”

He laughed bitterly
.
“I think I have proved quite adequately in the last weeks that a lack of wanting is not the problem.”

Heat rose beneath her bloodless skin
.
“No, you are right wanting is not the problem – we have passion, but liking is
our difficulty
.
Can you say you like me or even care for me in any fashion?”

“What has that to do with marriage?”

It was her turn to laugh.

“And you wonder that I will not wed you
?
Liking has a great deal to due with matrimony in my mind.”

“I would doubt that
.
For a moment I believed your story of Burberry and how things stood between you
.
I thought perhaps you really were the woman I imagined all those years . . . It made a pretty fable, but you forgot I knew the truth
.
If you had cared for Burberry as you claim we would not share a child
.
You do not betray those you love and respect.”

She would have thought he paled at his own words, but it must have been the clouds trailing across the night sky.

“What was between John and myself has nothing to do with you.”

“I would dispute that statement
.
My proof sleeps above.
”
He gestured to the nursery windows.

“I did not betray my husband, but you could never understand that.”

“Then marry me and prove to me you do have some honor, that you did not put it away when you let down your skirts and first put up your hair.”

“You have no rights to the secrets of my marriage, but I can see you will not let it rest
.
Do you really believe that I cuckolded John
?
Took him for a fool?”

“I think matters speak for themselves.”

“I had not shared John’s bed for
several
year
s
when we met
.
His pain was such that even the gentlest of touches could burn
.
You told me once even a simple soldier knew his sums, do you doubt an admiral could do the math?”