Page 66 of The Gentleman’s Leading Lady

She studied the lines of the building, considering. “You have built a home for a large family. And their friends.”

She probed a truth he hadn’t wanted to analyze. He’d been crafting designs for his ideal house for years, making additions, changing aspects, all based on designs he admired and wanted to try. He hadn’t actually thought about the people he planned to live in the house, beyond providing ample chambers for his mother and sisters and the luxury of a water closet.

In truth, he’d taken what hopes he’d once had and buried them away from the light of day. After Bathsheba taught him that he couldn’t trust his heart around women, he’d pushed thoughts of companionship out of his mind. He would focus on his career, and never lose his head again.

And yet he had designed a suite of rooms on the first floor with two dressing rooms, his and hers, with a small sitting room to the side where the lady of the house could take refuge in a quiet study of her own.

He was not a man to typically fool himself, and he knew, even at the time, falling for a courtesan like Bathsheba was not wise. He’d seen clearly her ambition and her wiles. He’d known her for the type of woman who would sacrifice others to her own self-interest. He’d pursued her anyway, thinking—or not thinking, with the impetuousness of youth—that he could change her. That he would be different.

But he hadn’t been different, not for her, and not for any of the women who had come after. Until Cerys.

Cerys was unlike any woman he’d met. And with her, he was different, too. He could no longer hold onto that guard, that careful reserve that he’d cultivated as a boy. She plucked away all his defenses and tossed them away like a Carnival mask, leaving his bare self open to her inspection.

I like it, she’d said.

“Come inside,” he said, his voice low and gruff with a hope he dared not name. “You could tell me how a lady would do up the furnishings.”

She twined her arm around his. “I’ve told you again and again, I am not a lady.”

“If you married a gentleman, you would become so.”

She studied him. “Who says I wish to marry a gentleman?”

His heart clawed at his chest, as if it would fight free of ribcage, waistcoats, all the complicated layers that separated them, and place itself in her hands. Was he fooling himself by thinking he had anything to offer her?

And yet the way she leaned on him, brushing her breast against his arm in the most distracting manner, made him entertain the fantastical notion that she simply might like him for himself alone.

“Do not mind the dust,” he warned as he led her over the tamped-down stretch of dirt that currently functioned as his front drive.

She laughed, and the sound caught at him, plucking at the tight tethers by which he bound himself, always. Bound himself too tightly, if she were to be believed.

“Recall that I grew up in a crumbling medieval ruin,” she said. “There were parts of the building we didn’t use because the roof had gone, and we didn’t have a complete set of windows until Pen—” She caught herself. “Until my stepfather’s friend made repairs.”

There was so much he didn’t know about her. Bathsheba’s background had been a mystery to him as well, but he’d never thought it important. It turned out, in that case, that knowing Bathsheba’s history was essential to understanding the woman, and his eyes might have opened to the truth much sooner if he had made an effort to learn.

He brushed off the twinge of warning. Cerys would tell him what he needed to know. What mattered at the moment was that she walked at his side, her hand on his arm, her lithe body close to his. The scent of jasmine clogged his senses. He would plant some near the doorway so each time he came and went from his house, he would be reminded of her.

Or perhaps—he tried to push the thought down, afraid it made him foolish, but it nipped at the edges of his mind.

Perhaps he might install Cerys in his house, and then every room might smell of jasmine, all the time.

“I see you have chosen Doric columns for the porch,” she murmured. “That scroll is called a volute, I understand.” She gave him an arch look.

He couldn’t stop himself. He squeezed his arm to bring her closer to him. “You are trying to impress me.”

She lifted her chin, tossing back her head. “I hope so.”

He held his breath as they climbed the small set of steps and crossed the threshold into the small vestibule. Double doors set with glass stood open to the entrance hall, with its tiles of veined marble and the cantilevered stone staircase. Cerys paused and studied every detail: the fanlight above the doors letting light spill into the hall, the enormous chandelier that hung from the ceiling, the tall sash windows that let in light above the stairs.

Her eyes followed the staircase that climbed to the first floor. He’d commissioned a wrought iron banister, but it wouldn’t be completed for months. There was no art yet on the wall, and the cornices and ceiling weren’t complete with the decorative touches he had planned. She would find it too plain. Simply austere, with nothing beautiful about it.

The house wasn’t the size of Suffolk House, either. It was him, a reflection of his deepest self, in a way he couldn’t explain. If she did not approve… He stood torn, like a prisoner on the rack, unable to move until he knew which way the judgment might fall. If Cerys Evans did not want him, simply him, he might never recover from the blow.

She turned in a small circle, tipping back her head to show the lovely line of her jaw and throat. He burned to trace that line with his mouth, taste again her tender skin. Feel her heat surrounding him—the warmth that was all her, an outpouring of her generous and loyal heart.

“Dante,” she whispered. “It feels so… I cannot think of the word.”

“Cold?” A tight pinch caught his chest. “Too austere? It is not yet finished.”