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“Also, Edwards was dressed. She had her corsets on still, and her undergarments. She had just taken her dress off, although it was decorously draped across the floor for the world to see. It gave the impression that we had been intimate. Throughout the night, I can remember turning over on at least two occasions and being completely alone. I remember in distinctly because I was hoping you would come to me again.”
Petal felt tears leak out of the corner of her eyes. “I wish I had now but it seemed terribly presumptuous, especially when you had spent the better part of the day ignoring me.”
“Do you think I would have turned you away?” He asked, curious.
“I am – was – your servant. I can hardly just clamber into the master’s bed whenever the moment strikes. We should not have done what we did in the first place.”
The despondency in her voice made him tip his head to look down into her face. He didn’t want her to hide from him in any way. He needed to see her expressive face because he rather felt there was something she wasn’t telling him.
“I don’t regret it,” he said boldly. “How could I?”
“You seemed to,” she whispered. Her voice was thick with emotion.
“I had to, sweetheart. I have been contemplating for several days now whether to ask you to marry me or not. Before you appeared in my life, I had vowed never to marry. You have made me reconsider my feelings about it all. When the dowager turned up as she did the day after we slept together, I daren’t look at you for fear of giving away our relationship to either her or Edwards. I don’t want either of them to know about us until we have matters on a more formal footing.”
“It is impossible.”
“What is?” He demanded boldly.
“Us. This. You and me,” she replied.
“Really?” He countered. “It all seems very real to me.”
“We cannot be together again,” she said sadly.
“Oh? Why not?” He wondered what she considered them lying on the bed together to be.
“It isn’t right.”
“You are not my servant anymore,” he reminded her.
Petal sighed. “I know, but I am not of equal standing to you.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said thoughtfully as he studied their bodies. “I think we fit together beautifully.”
It was some time before he was confident that he had shown her completely just how well they were suited. However, he knew there was one final stage to his plan that would allay any lingering doubts.
“I can’t deny you,” she whispered a long time later, somewhat appalled at how little self-control she had once she was in his arms.
“Then don’t,” he muttered.
“I have to. Someone has to be the voice of reason. Look at us. You are the dowager’s son. She hates me,” she reminded him. “Everyone is going to object. We would both be fools to deny it.”
“It isn’t for anyone else to have an opinion. As far as I am concerned, this is about you and me. Together we can conquer just about anything.”
“I should not be providing those kind of services. I am sorry I have.”
This irked him. “So why have you?”
She hesitated to tell him. She just couldn’t humiliate herself completely.
When she didn’t answer, he tipped her chin up until she faced him.
“Why?” He persisted.
“I w-wanted you,” she whispered.
“Do you still?” His voice turned husky with desire.
