She went and opened the door, and there he was, and she looked a fright, still in her nightdress, her hair all tangled this way and that. She worried about that tangle she could not get out. What must have happened to it while he had his mouth between her thighs? It could only have worsened.
And then—
“Who saw you?”
“No one, Lizzy, give me some credit. I can sneak around my own property,” he said. He had a plate of food. “I brought you breakfast.”
She moved away from the door, hands going to her hair and then to her nightdress. “I look a fright.”
“No, you definitely don’t,” he said. “You look…” He looked her up and down and then away, muttering an oath under his breath. “Let us say that I find you tantalizing and leave it at that.” He thrust the plate at her.
She took it, lifting the napkin that covered it to see that there were sausages and boiled eggs and buttered toast and sliced pears. She let out something like a moan.
“Oh, don’t make that noise,” he said, sounding devastated.
“Apologies.” She went and set the plate down. “There is never enough food, really. I am always hungry.”
“Well, eat, then,” he said.
“I wish to save it,” she said. “I wish to have some for later, and—”
“I shall make sure you have more food than you can possibly eat. This is ridiculous. I am not starving any woman under my roof, let alone one carrying a child, let alone one that I am in love with.”
She made a very tiny noise in the back of her throat. He had not justsaidthat.
He muttered another oath under his breath. “There. Again. I cannotspeakin front of you.” He ran a hand through his hair, his expression pained.
She clasped her hands in front of her. “You do not love me, though, sir. You said that, and you may have felt things before, but now you—”
“Now, you are my responsibility entirely,” he said. “And now I have seen you and touched you and kissed you, and whatever I felt before, I feel it twenty times more intensely now. You can’t think this between us has lessened my feelings.”
“Well, you think of me like some sort of bawd or something, though. You called it my…” She sat down in front of the fire, sighing. “Truly, I suppose I love you as well, but I would, wouldn’t I, when you are being like this to me now, when you are being ever so kind to me.”
He sat down in the chair next to hers. “I am not being kind. I am being wretched. But this is why I am here, so that we can remedy this, find the way forward. I want you out of this room. I want you somewhere else. Eventually, I should like you to have your own house, I suppose, and we need to talk about where that should be. You may wish to be closer to your family, though I suppose it may be some time before they can visit you, but theywillbe able to, when whispers have died down and no one is thinking about—”
“You want me to be your mistress,” she said, understanding him suddenly.
He raised his eyebrows. “I know, you have resistance to that, but you must think this through. You are making decisions about everyone else in your life, and I need you to think about yourself and your child, and I need you to recognize what I can provide. Also, I really think, and this is my own fault, because I did not—I just took you—but I think youaremy mistress now.”
She put a hand to her mouth, because… he was right. She settled into the chair, all of the breath going out of her lungs, letting that wash through her, the depths to which she’d sunk.
“No, no, stop it,” he said, gesturing with both hands. “You’re being very… female about it, and there is no reason to act as if it’s some sort of tragedy. I have a great deal in the way of resources, and you must see that I can bring that to bear for the babe. Youthink Hurst can provide everything that I can provide? If it’s a girl, I can give her a dowry. I shall claim her, so if she’s my child, she’ll have a good marriage, something respectable. Maybe she can’t come out and meet the queen, but she can certainly wed some merchant or a tradesman or something of that nature. And if it’s a boy, it hardly matters. I shall send him to school, and he will have a profession, and everyone will accept him if I wish it. I have seen it. I can make it happen.”
She was stunned. Her lips parted.
He dragged a hand over his face. “I’m getting ahead of myself. When I practiced saying this, I did not go in this order. That’s very far down the road, and we must think, really, of now, of your comfort. If I could just take all that back and start over—”
“You practiced this?” She was shaking her head at him, rather amazed that he cared so much about what it was that she thought.
“I can’t let you deny me, Lizzy,” he said. “I don’t wish to force anything on you, but you must at least hear me out on it all.”
She gaped at him. She was at a loss for words.
“You’re not eating,” he said.
She sputtered. “I am not going to sit here and stuff my face full while you try to talk me into becoming a scarlet woman!”
He glared at her. “Forgive me. I’m not saying it’s entirely your fault, for a great deal of it is my own fault, but I think that ship has sailed.”
