Page 43 of The Thorn and the Rose

“Shame and the wages of sin was what you expected,” Elmira replied without rancour. “Well, bugger that.”

Rosemarie’s eyebrows went up and Elmira shot her a sheepish grin. “Sorry, George taught me that. I’m not even sure what it means but I know it’s very rude,” she added, chuckling.

Rosemarie gave a startled laugh. “Bugger that, indeed,” she repeated in her most ladylike accents, setting Elmira off into whoops.

“Oh, I knew I liked you the first minute I saw you,” she said, chortling with mirth, which subsided when the sound of wheels on gravel reached them. “Ah! Here is your Lord Thomas come to see you. What a fine, handsome fellow he is, and so charming too, just like his father. Eat up quickly, my dear. I’ll settle him in the front parlour until you’re ready.”

Rosemarie did not have time to say she would never be ready to see him, not ever again, and could only watch Elmira as she winked at her merrily and hurried from the room.

Thorn paced before the fireplace as he waited for Marie to appear. He had not slept well, plagued by unnerving dreams that began in that dingy cellar where Marie had nursed him and ended with him dead in an alley and her hands stained with blood. Nonsense, he reassured himself. It was just his brother’s words making him see plots and ulterior motives where there were none. Although, no… there were things going on he did not understand, that was undeniable, and Marie was certainly not telling him the truth. Not all of it, anyway. But there was something stubborn inside him that refused to think ill of her. Pip would no doubt say that was because Thorn was thinking with something other than his brain, which he could not entirely deny.

In between the grisly images of his own demise, there had been other less disturbing but no less affecting scenes involving her slender limbs entangled intimately with his own. He had woken far from rested, feeling irritated and aggrieved, and determined to get to hear the truth from her.

He spun around as the door opened, a breath of relief escaping him as he realised he had not entirely expected to see her this morning.

“Marie,” he said, realising too late his tone had been cold and formal. Bloody hell, he sounded like his father at his iciest. Clearing his throat, he tried to sound a touch less unapproachable. “I trust you slept well?”

She stood in the doorway, hands clasped together. “Wonderfully well,” she admitted with the faintest glimmer of a smile. “I had forgotten what it felt like to feel so warm and comfortable.”

Thorn frowned at that. How bad had things been for her? He did not like the thought that she had experienced cold and discomfort, that she spent her nights fearful for the future.

“I have been made so very welcome, too. I admit I had not expected that.”

Thorn nodded. “They’re lovely, aren’t they?” he agreed, though he did not know the inhabitants like Larkin and some of the others did, he had met and spoken to them and like Marie, had been touched by their spirit and warmth which seemed to infuse the very walls of Gillmont with a sense of peace and welcome.

“Do you…?” she began, and then flushed hotly and closed her mouth again.

“Do I…?” he repeated, curious what she’d been about to ask him.

“Never mind.” She shook her head and moved from the door to the window, staying as far from him as she could get.

“No, go on. Ask me anything,” he said. “Your brother has tarred us all as libertines and ne’er-do-wells, but I have yet to see proof of that slanderous accusation.”

Her mouth dropped into a little ‘o’ of shock, her eyes opening very wide, as if the evidence was so obvious it ought to slap him in the face.

“What?” he demanded, aggrieved.

Once again, she gave a taut shake of her head, turning her back on him and staring out of the window, her arms folded tightly about her waist.

Thorn watched her, temper rising, his patience unravelling as the silence stretched on and on.

“Damn you, Marie,” he growled, crossing the room and taking her by the shoulders, turning her to face him. “Either speak the words that condemn me or put your trust in me and cast all those damned suspicions aside. It’s not fair to torment me with these half-truths and enigmatic words. Why are you here? Why did you send for me? Is it part of a greater plot?”

He stared down at her, aware of the quickening of her breath, of her breasts rising and falling faster within the confines of her corset. Her eyes were still full of secrets, but there was something else there too, a longing so potent and raw that it took his breath away.

“Marie,” he said again, but his voice was softer now, his hands rising to cup her face of their own volition. “Damn you for tangling me up in this, in you,” he said with undisguised heat and frustration, and pulled her into his arms.

He half expected a struggle to get free, perhaps that he’d get his face slapped for his trouble, despite the clarity of the desire he’d seen in her gaze. There was no struggle. Marie went to him as if it were inevitable, melting into his arms and lifting her mouth to his. She fitted into his clasp upon her as though she were a piece made by the hand of fate, specifically to meet the dimensions of his embrace. The rightness of it pushed him off-balance, fighting against the chaotic web of suspicion in his mind. Yet the kiss was too enticing, too tempting to break, her body rounded and soft in all the right places, her slender waist and the flare of her hips tempting his hands to explore further.

With more tenderness than his flailing equilibrium might have expected of him, he gentled his touch, teasing her lips with his own, inviting her to explore him too. Much to his delight, the delicate trace of his tongue across her lips was met with the tentative touch of her own against his mouth. He smiled, showing her the way their mouths and tongue could play and slide together, an intimate dance that stirred his blood and made him want to forget everything but the pleasure they could find together. He was not quite such a fool as that, though. At least he hoped he wasn’t.

Rosemarie was lost in a tangle of confusion, of want, need, anger and frustration. How could she be so drawn to this man, how could her heart be so certain of him when all evidence was to the contrary? Though she did not believe he was the father of Elmira’s child, there was nothing to say there wasn’t another here that belonged to him, or that he hadn’t been the one to seduce Miss Nichols. Despite knowing this, and though she ought to revile him, her body ached for his touch, desire thrumming beneath her skin and demanding she cast herself into his arms and damn the consequences. In spite of everything, her foolish heart had taken those days in the cellar and painted his memory in the colours of a man she could love, and she could not make the foolish organ relinquish that golden icon. The tentative dreams she had spun were as insubstantial as mist yet losing them might break her entirely. She tore her mouth from his and buried her face against his chest, clinging to him as if she might drown, should he let go.

“What is it?” he asked her gently.

Rosemarie shook her head. How did one ask a man if he’d sired a bastard, if any of the fallen women in this house had been his lovers? Was there a polite manner to ask such things? If there was, she did not know of it.

He lifted her chin, studying her face. “I want to trust you, Marie, but I daren’t, not unless you trust me with the truth.”