Page 58 of Better Off Wed

“I should get to work.” He patted his breast pocket, where his notes and Thornton’s letter once more hid. “I don’t foresee getting much sleep for the next few nights, dreamless or otherwise.”

“You will tell me,” she said, reaching for his hand, “what comes of it all?”

“If I’m right, news of what Thornton has done will appear in all the papers. But yes,” he conceded, squeezing her fingers, “I will find a way to let you know what I safely can.”

“And General Scott?” Her eyes searched his face. For all her fatigue, they had lost none of their sharpness. “What will you tell him?”

“That with respect to Lady Sterling, my mission was unsuccessful.” Unable to hold her gaze, he chafed his thumb over her knuckles, watching the supple kid leather shift over those delicate ridges, wishing he hadn’t bought the damned gloves. He wanted nothing between them. “If that is what you wish me to say.”

“You would risk displeasing your commanding officer? To protect me?”

Jeremy darted a glance around the room, taking in the dark coziness of it, remembering how it had felt to stand before Scott’s impossibly neat desk and receive those unwelcome orders. Finally, he raised his eyes to her. “Have I not already shown my willingness to take risks where you are concerned?”

“You have,” she conceded, a mischievous smile playing about her lips. “With certain notable exceptions.”

“Laura.” He was tempted, even now, to throw that last caution to the wind, to scandalize Scott’s servants and make her his forever, right there on the hearthrug. To tell her why he’d kept to himself all these years. To ruin her—ruin everything.

Her throat bobbed. “At least kiss me goodbye, Jeremy,” she said, tilting her face to him.

He couldn’t deny her such a simple request, or rather, he couldn’t deny himself. His kiss would have to say what he should not. When their lips met, he understood with sudden clarity that strange old expression of having one’s heart in one’s mouth. It was fear, yes, but hope and hunger too, everything he wished to give her and could not.

She dragged her mouth across his cheek, baring her throat to him. The bristles of a day’s growth of beard scratched her tender skin, just as he’d warned her in the carriage.

“Be careful,” he urged, though God knew he would gladly have buried himself in her softness.

A bitter laugh vibrated against his lips. “Too late.”

The sound of footsteps in the entry hall brought him to his senses. He broke the kiss, released her hand, and stood. “I must go, my dear.”

She nodded. “I know.”

Outside the door, he met the butler himself carrying the tea tray. Much of the staff had been given time off in the general’s absence, he supposed. “Duty calls,” he told Highsmith, who nodded his understanding. “You will see that Miss Hopkins gets safely home?”

“Of course, Captain. I’ll send Searle to assist her.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask Highsmith to say nothing of the matter to Scott when he returned. But he had no business making such a request of an honest and faithful servant. “Thank you,” he said instead. Opening the front door for himself, he stepped out into the night.

* * * *

On the carriage ride to Clapham, Laura realized that the pain in her ankle had been driven out of her mind entirely by a new ache. Odd, that.

She had always assumed heartbreak was a figurative condition.

For years now, she had devoted herself to the protection of others. She had never considered—never allowed herself to dwell on the possibility that she was in truth trying to protect herself. The more she saw of men’s depravity, the more determined she had been not to make herself vulnerable. Not to let herself be hurt.

“Too late,” she whispered again into the darkness, as the streets of London hurried past, indifferent to her pain.

She had every intention to go on as she had begun, helping the mistreated, seeking justice. Lady Sterling would ever be an ally to those in a world seemingly made up of foes.

But now she knew she wanted something else, too, something more. She wanted a future with the one man who placed no limits on who she was or who she might become.

Except, of course, to say that she would never be Lady Sterling in earnest.

In one way, she understood his reluctance. She herself had spent so many years thinking of what she would lose if she ever married: her independence, her freedom, the better part of her fortune. She had not let herself dream of what she might gain: true support, true companionship, true love. But she had caught a glimpse of all of those things with Jeremy.

What kept him from imagining a future with her? Something, or someone, had chased him into the shadows, where he had learned to dwell but forgotten how to live. If she could ever persuade him to be totally honest with her about what it was that troubled him, could he still look her in the eye and try to tell her that they wouldn’t suit? That he wasn’t happier and more successful when she was beside him? That they weren’t better off together than they had ever been apart?

He was too logical and sensible to ignore the truth for long, if only she could figure out a way to help him see it.