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She nodded without speaking. Her eyes dipped to his lips. He knew what she was silently asking him for, and he was happy to accede to her demands.
“Good, then I am not the only one who feels like this.”
“You want me too? Still?”
He was surprised she needed to ask and proceeded to show her just how much he did want her. Aware that her father was over in the church talking to the Vicar, and the rest of his willing band of helpers were still preparing for his – their – wedding, he went no further than a kiss this time.
“What are you doing?” she asked when she felt his hand slide slowly up the curved length of her leg.
“Showing you how much you mean to me,” he replied gently. “Tell me to stop if you want to but I shan’t. It is the one thing I have to deny you.”
“Deny me?”
“Yes, stopping. I cannot allow you to stop me – this – us.”
When he was doing such wondrous things with his hands like that, she couldn’t get the words past the hazy fog of desire. It clouded her thoughts and drove every ounce of common sense of the window.
“I can’t,” she murmured.
“Good. Don’t even try it,” he warned darkly. “I won’t allow you to close me out, Petal. I won’t let you
ignore what we have. This is rare; this desire that lies between us. This kind of attraction is something that only a very few people ever get to experience. I, for one, don’t ever intend to take that for granted. Don’t ask me to ignore it. Not now that I have you in my life.”
It pained her to have to say it, but she just couldn’t bear the thought of the heartbreak losing him would cause her. She adored him.
“I shouldn’t have done what – well – what we have just done. I am not your kind, Aidan,” she whispered.
“What the devil does that mean?” he demanded with a frown.
“I don’t belong in your world. I am a servant. I can only ever be a servant. I can’t do anything else, I don’t know how.” Her voice trailed off to a whisper.
Although she knew it was sensible to do what she was doing, it hurt so very much. Unfortunately, she still couldn’t turn him out of his life forever.
“My world is your world, Petal. I used to move around in the ton, but it is not my life. Just because I was born into it doesn’t mean that I have to accept it. I don’t.” He sighed and drew her against him as tightly as he could and pressed a kiss to her temple.
“I have never mentioned this to another soul before, but when I had the carriage accident, I wasn’t unconscious all the time. At some point immediately after the crash, I don’t know when I woke up. I know that the wheels were still spinning. That low humming noise was the only sound I could hear. It reminded me of my life, whizzing past me uncontrollably. There were so many things I wanted to see, to do, and I just hadn’t been allowed to do them because of my connection to the ton. The constant round of balls, musicals, theatre trips and the like, took up so much of my time that there didn’t seem to be room for anything else. Yet I realised there was much more I wanted from life. I just didn’t think I would ever be able to have it after what had happened to Jerry. Happy marriages within the aristocracy are rare. I didn’t want to be like one of them or my brother, but I had a choice to make. I could either live my life as I see fit, and hopefully find the happiness and contentment I wanted or stay within the ton, and end up as obnoxious and restrained by the dictates of others as the dowager is.”
“She will really hate you being associated with me if she ever finds out,” she murmured.
While she could understand what he was telling her, she couldn’t change who she was. There were very few opportunities in life for someone like her anyway. By sleeping with him, she had scuppered the one chance she had of a better life. She didn’t get the chance to start all over again. In fact, now that she didn’t have a job she wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to do.
“It isn’t for the dowager to object to anything I do with my life. I know she is my mother, but look at her. Does she look happy to you? She has gone from trying to destroy Jerry’s life, and very nearly succeeding, to trying to destroy mine. It makes me wonder what she will turn her attention to once we are married.”
“Does Jerry have his sights set on someone?” she asked, desperate to keep her thoughts away from the prospect of Aidan being married to someone else.
“Not as far as I am aware. Jerry has sworn never to marry again.”
“Well, she certainly seems determined,” she murmured thinking of the obvious way she had sailed into Aidan’s bed chamber, her eligible ladies dutifully at her side.
At some point, she knew one of them would catch his eye.
She quickly turned her attention to a blot on the ceiling she had not seen before, and tried to ignore the ache in the region of her heart.
“Well, she will have to focus her attentions somewhere else after today,” he whispered.
“Why after today?” Petal’s heart began to thunder in her chest.
She knew that look in his eye far too well now, and felt a sinking sensation deep in the pit of her belly.
