Page 60 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

Her heart stumbled in her chest. Perhaps he’d had the same notion from the beginning. Send her back.

She wouldn’t go. There was nothing for her in London without Joseph there. There was nothing for her anywhere, without him.

And damn him for becoming so absolutely necessary to her happiness. Making her stoop to being his servant again, which she swore she would not do, simply so she might be near him.

“I don’t suppose it’s the done thing, even in the country, to lodge one’s mistress under one’s own roof. Still, you are the Baronet now, and by all accounts your cousin Reuben kept his light o’ loves within doors as well.” A quick intake of breath said she’d hit a mark with that barb. She shook out the velvet of his best dinner coat and held it up, giving him a false, forced smile.

“I could put my things in the room opposite yours,” she prattled as he slid his arms into the sleeves. How far could she goad him before he broke? “Fancy me then, setting myself up as the lady of the house. What shall I say to your callers, though? Am I to receive the gentry of the neighborhood and say I am your ward? They’ll see through that in an instant, as fast as Mrs. Truckle from the George. I’m of an age to sign my own contracts.” Briskly she buttoned his coat, wondering what lay in his heart beneath all these layers, such a mystery to her.

“Such an arrangement won’t put you in good standing with the vicar, that’s certain. He’ll fear you’ll begin a new fashion for the neighborhood, keeping one’s ladybird under one’s roof. But more expensive still to house me elsewhere, unless you choose one of the cottages.”

“I am not going to put you in one of the cottages.” His scowl darkened, and he fairly spit out the words. He seemed stumbling to find speech.

The cottages were comfortable, not fancy by any means, but warm and snug. Inez had gone with Wenna to fetch the one she called Old Jupe, a stretched-thin stick of a woman, a widow of ancient years, who minded the babes while Wenna worked. And such sweet babes they were, a young boy of about three and a girl half that age, toddling about on unsteady legs after her brother, who explained everything to her with the authority of the elder sibling.

With nothing else to do with them for the nonce they’d brought the babes to the kitchen and put them to work, the boy mashing boiled potatoes, the bonny girl sifting flour. In the dim reaches of her memory, Inez recalled helping her mother in much the same manner, starting at small tasks even as a young child.

She knew how to keep a house well enough, with a score of years for practice. Only when might she have a house of her own?

“True, I’ve no need for a cottage,” she said around the clump of despair in her throat. “There’s a room in the attics that will do well enough for me, with a window to catch the air come summer.” She buttoned his coat, taking her sweet time about it, enjoying the hard stretch of his chest beneath her fingers.

“I won’t ruin you by flaunting you as my mistress, and you are certainly not part of my staff.” His temper was rising again. He yanked at the hem of his coat, straightening the seam across his shoulders.

“Then what, Joseph?” She froze, cold coursing through her. Slowly, fearing the truth, she lifted her eyes to meet his. A bronze fire burned in those chocolate depths. “You mean to send me back?”

He dropped his gaze. “It would be best for you,” he muttered.

She wouldn’t do it. He could set her outside, front door or back, and she would merely circle around and climb in the window. The need for him to hold her was so overwhelming it nearly blotted out her mind.

She took the edge of her apron and focused on polishing the brass buttons of his coat. Her chest ached as if it were a window and someone had thrown up the sash to let the wind blow through.

“I won’t go back,” she said. “There is nothing for me in London.”

“Amaranthe will take you in.”

“Perhaps I don’t want to work in a great house.” She moved to the buttons on his sleeve. “Perhaps I want to keep my own house for once.”

“I could give you George Court. You could live there.”

“And do what?” She couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Read. Sew. Entertain callers.” A long pause unspooled as she polished his buttons, slowly, taking every opportunity to touch him.

“As what? A merry spinster, all my life long?” The prospect didn’t sound terrible, and once she might have relished such independence. Before she tasted Joseph Illingworth and realized he was hers.

“Unless you marry. But you said you did not want to marry again.”

She knelt to polish the buckles of his shoes so he couldn’t see her face. No, she didn’t want to marry, not anyone else. But if were him— The thought brought a lump to her throat as if she were trying to swallow week-old bread. If she were his cherished bride, the lady of his home, his companion at table as they had been these days, the woman he shared his hearth and his bed with.

Tears blurred her vision. She wanted that so badly she could not speak the words.

He had this house now, was lord and master of his own estate. He had a title. He would have standing in the neighborhood. He was young and of sound mind and good health, full of vigor, sinfully beautiful to look upon. Every girl within leagues would want to marry him.

And he would choose one, because for as long as she had known Joseph Illingworth, all he had wanted from his life, after a respectable position and cakes with his tea and good books to read, was a house and a family of his own. So much had he wanted that, he threw himself again and again after a Susannah Pettigrew, a vain, silly girl who couldn’t see past the end of her nose.

And he could not choose Inez, because every dictate of class and custom said she was not suitable for a man of his rank. When he married, he would cut all ties to her. And what future would she have, alone and without the man she loved?

Loved. It was too soon to tell him that. He hadn’t brought himself to properly swive her yet, as if it spelled a commitment he wasn’t prepared to make. She rose and took up the clothes brush, scrubbing the velvet of his coat to a smooth nap. Another excuse to touch him, to admire the fine shape of him beneath her hands. To leave her prints upon him, or press into him the knowledge that held her: You are mine.