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“No, I don’t suppose there is, but then we have no coconuts.” He looked up at her, seeming more relaxed than usual. “Nothing like a snowy day to stay wrapped up in bed with a good book and a better woman.”
When she looked over to him, there was a hint of devilry in his eyes and she couldn’t help but smile. But all he referred to was his desire for her and that wasn’t enough. She’d decided sometime over the past few days that for some, for people like Angelique, perhaps, it was enough, but not for her.
“Let’s eat,” she said, walking toward the chair he had pulled out for her. “I’m famished. You can read to me about your rock oil while I dine on these oysters. Wait until you taste them. Mrs. Porter has—”
An insistent banging on the bedchamber door startled Sapphire and she looked through the doorway into the room, then back at Blake. No one had disturbed them on previous nights. If anyone knew she was here alone with him, the household certainly pretended otherwise. It was as if when she passed over a threshold, she and Blake existed in their own world.
“Sir…Mr. Thixton,” Mrs. Dedrick called from the other side of the door, her voice higher in pitch than usual.
Sapphire leaped out of the chair, pulling on her mobcap.
“Sapphire,” Blake intoned.
She ran for the door. “Mrs. Dedrick,” she said, pulling it open, dipping a quick curtsy. “I was just—”
“Mr. Thixton. You have a guest, sir.” Mrs. Dedrick said. “Mrs. Sheraton—”
“Step aside,” ordered Mrs. Sheraton from the corridor.
Sapphire recognized her from the dinner party.
The forty-year-old woman walked into the bedchamber in a swish of blue organdy. “Send them away, please, Blake,” she cried, red-eyed, a lace handkerchief knotted in her small hands.
Sapphire turned to Blake. He stood in the doorway to the balcony and she realized that they had reached a defining moment in their relationship, if a relationship was what they had.
“Come at once,” Mrs. Dedrick hissed at Sapphire, snapping her fingers as if calling a child or a pet. “Come.”
“Oh, Blake, you cannot believe what Rufus has done,” Mrs. Sheraton moaned, putting out her hand to him.
“What’s wrong, Grace?” Sapphire heard him say as she followed Mrs. Dedrick out of the bedchamber.
“The tray and covers from the meal,” Sapphire mumbled.
“Leave ‘em.” Mrs. Dedrick snapped, her keys jingling at her waist. “The mastah’s bechambah is not the place for you.”
“Oh, Blake,” Grace Sheraton sobbed, putting her arms over his shoulders.
He stood stiffly in the center of his bedchamber, unsure of what had just silently taken place between him and Sapphire. The ticking of the case clock on the mantel and Grace’s sniffles filled his head.
What had Sapphire expected him to do, turn Grace away? “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Has Rufus fallen ill?”
“Fallen ill?” Tears ran down a face that was still pretty for a woman almost ten years older than he. “If only I could be so fortunate.”
“Do you want to sit down?” He was more than a little uncomfortable with her body draped over his.
They had carried on their affair for more than five years. Her husband cheated on her with society women and maids alike and generally ignored her. It had seemed harmless enough, Blake’s liaisons with his neighbor. Grace was discreet, emotionally undemanding, and he enjoyed her company in bed. But since his return to Boston, he had avoided her invitations. He felt as if their time together was done and he had hoped it would just fade rather than having to come to a tearful, ugly ending, the way it was sometimes did with women. He had hoped to avoid a scene such as the one that appeared to be unfolding. Blake didn’t deal with crying women very well, certainly not crying women who were other men’s wives. He was never sure when the distress was genuine or when he was being manipulated.
r /> “No, I don’t want to sit,” Grace cried, pulling herself closer to him, pressing herself against his chest. “I want you to hold me. Hold me, Blake.”
Reluctantly, he wrapped one arm around her waist, but as he caught a whiff of the perfume that had once tantalized his senses, all he could think of was Sapphire and how differently she smelled than other women. Even back in London, she had rarely worn perfume. It was her hair that he smelled when he drew her close, her soft skin, her essence that beguiled him.
“What has Rufus done now?”
“He wants an annulment,” she murmured, pressing her face to his chest.
“An annulment?” Blake laughed. “You’ve been married twenty-five years. You’ve given him three children—”
“Then a divorce. He doesn’t care, he only wants to be rid of me now that I’m of no use or interest to him.” She began to cry in earnest, her tears dampening his shirt. “He says he’s fallen in love with another and that he’s leaving me to marry her.”
