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“I understand,” she replied to his comment. “I should have talked to you about it.” And turned to put the dress away.
“I assured Oliver you’d be safe.” Her movement caused her scent to fill his nostrils, and his body responded intensely. Unbidden, he closed in on her.
Her head lifted to him. “I—” The words dried as their eyes meshed.
Even in the dim light of the room, Drake witnessed her gaze morphing into that parakeet shade. As much as his blood rushed to his nether regions. He didn’t think, didn’t censor himself, didn’t care.
One arm laced her waist and brought her flush to him. Her intake of air and lack of resistance encouraged him. His head plunged, and their mouths clasped together while her arms held his shoulders. He kissed her with desperation, the day’s worry surfacing and mingling with the hunger that wouldn’t abate, wouldn’t be ignored. Both his arms banded her, bringing her so close their bodies melded. She produced a sound in her throat that fuelled him further. He devoured her mouth as if he’d never kiss her again in his life. Because losing her to danger hurt. Sacrificing her in the name of lineage caused an acute pain he didn’t understand where it came from. But gnawed at him with agony and regret.
They weren’t in the Middle Ages any longer. He, as a lord, didn’t have that much power. She, as a professional, acquired more choices. And he’d have to let go eventually. The simple thought ripped at his guts like a thousand plough shears cutting at his flesh. Everything in him screamed a resounding no. He wouldn’t be another unhappy wretch like his mother, or even his father, who must have sought women to appease his loneliness, to give meaning to his hollow life.
Drake caught Hester’s upper arms and interrupted the kiss. He was aware that his eyes bore the taint of his despair for the future.
Her head tilted back, she looked at him wide eyes, swollen, moist lips. And all he wanted was to ravish her here, this very minute.
“Marry me,” he gnarled, unconcerned that his voice came soaked in emotion.
Her gaze assumed a vague hue as though she doubted what she heard. He watched as her brows pleated and a hard glint transformed the parakeet into moss in a question of seconds.
She pulled him away and strode to the other side of the room and returned her stare to him. "Are you insane?" Her tone spelt ludicrousness in each syllable.
He might be. Insane, that is. Or he just wished to avoid going insane with the route their lives could take. He would marry a noblewoman of a breed and reproduce his lineage, his station, his society to a nauseating point. She could marry that damned Irishman and reproduce her beauty, her intelligence. Her insouciance. She'd not look back once as she showed in these past weeks.
And perhaps he'd follow in his father's steps, looking for her in every mistress, making his marchioness unhappy, making himself miserable. And what for? Their lives were drops in the ocean. The vanity of today was the dust of tomorrow. Look at the Roman Empire, for instance. Crumbled to dust, to oblivion. All those arrogant emperors, or generals, or senators whose names few remembered. Whether or not they made a difference, they were dead. Their pathetic existences wasted in the search of glory also turned to dust—the search and the glory.
“I’ve never been more clear-minded in my entire life,” he growled with the weight of his musings.
“It doesn’t seem so to me.” Her voice had a tinge of affront, and he didn’t fathom the reason for it.
“We’re the perfect match,” he argued. The past year proved they liked the same things and possessed similar personal traits.
She huffed a laugh. “What, the rarefied lord and the lowly actress?”
He braced his legs, crossed his arms, and looked right in her eyes. “No, the man and the woman.” He proposed on an impulse. But the more he dwelled on it, the more he saw it as the right thing to do.
Her chin tilted up, her eyes two icy orbs on him. “The man and the woman aren’t isolated in a desert island somewhere.”
“No, we’re in a very populated and very hierarchical island in fact,” he quipped.
“Precisely.” Her hands came to her waist. “And I have not a death-wish to enter your glitteringly useless world.”
“We could live peacefully in the country.” He imagined it to be the ideal.
“I enjoy the country, but who and what I am are exactly here, in this theatre.” What she meant was that she wouldn’t stop working because of marriage or children. Her peers did it all the time, why would he think it strange?
“There’s nothing, no one, preventing you from carrying on with your work.” No one did it in his circles, but he prided himself in his open-mindedness.
This time she gave laugh devoid of humour. “Oh, yes. Imagine the comments.” She pointed a finger at empty space as if to someone, a hand on her waist. “’Look at the Marchioness of Worcester whoring herself in the stage!’” Her voice mimed a matron full of herself, like a true actress.
“As if you cared for the ton’s opinion.” He appreciated her flair for the stage even as her body language changed again, her arms falling to her sides, chin tilting higher than before. The woman was a veritable chameleon.
“No, but I do care for their toxic leering.”
And who would blame her? Noblemen, not noblewomen, ruled this country as members of parliament, ministers, secretaries. They comprised a caste of their own, detached from every other rank, living in their own glass-dome, making their own rules and, worse, using everyone they considered below them as pawns for their own benefit. Drake saw it clearly, wasn’t proud of it, or the part he played in it. But one man alone couldn’t change the world; he could change his world. That’s what he was trying to do here, with little to no cooperation from the woman standing before him.
“You don’t have to answer me now. Take some time to ponder on it,” he suggested as a last resource.
“I don’t need any time.” And cast a direct look at him. “The answer is no.” And brushed past him out of
