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“Where are you going?” Miss Brightwell sounded panicked, as well she might, and Sylvester felt another surge of anger. Was this a deliberate ploy to put him in a compromising situation with Miss Brightwell so that he might be forced to do the honourable thing?
To his surprise, it appeared Lady Quamby knew what he was thinking, for she said quite openly, “Please don’t worry that it’s a trap. I know your interest in my cousin has faded for reasons known only to you, and so I wanted to give you this opportunity to explain why. I promise you I haven’t staged anything that will force you to the altar. I merely want you to take the next two minutes en route to your residence to explain matters to Thea, since I think she deserves at least that from you. The coachman will ensure she’s delivered home safely once he’s deposited you.”
Then she was gone, the tense atmosphere such a speech occasioned within the small space in which they were cocooned so thick he could have sliced it with a billiard cue.
With difficulty he tried to articulate some coherent words as the carriage rolled down the bumpy road, Lady Quamby having directed the driver to take a circuitous route around the town. Ten minutes to unburden himself and then Miss Brightwell would be under no illusions as to the cad he was while he would be…free. The thought should have made him relieved, if not altogether happy.
Careful not to come too closely into contact and so compromise his intention of being open and, sadly, brutal, Sylvester cleared his throat. “Miss Brightwell, it does me no credit to say it, but nor could I have been the gentleman to bring you happiness if we were to live on my income alone. Truly, I did not mean to dash your hopes.” He hated to see her distress but forced himself to go on. The genuine perplexity and hurt in her expression finally convinced him she had no knowledge of the duplicity which had been orchestrated by the rest of the Brightwell clan in her own interests. As a result, he felt even worse as a flood of feeling washed over him; but he forced himself to go on, as sensitively and earnestly as he could, stiffening against the side of the carriage so he was not distracted by her unsettling nearness. “Your cousins led me to believe you were not long for this world and exhorted me to show you the pleasure you’d not otherwise have experienced. The truth is, my initial feelings for you were tenderness and pity which, I regret, became something deeper at the same time that I realised you were were not in fact dying and that I was entirely unable to make you the offer you were no doubt expecting after—” He shrugged helplessly—“I, and possibly you, discovered we were both deceived as to the true state of affairs. Truly, I am…sorry.” He watched her dismay turn to horror.
“What are you saying, Mr Grayling? Not long for this world? Why, I am in greater health than anyone I know!” He almost laughed out loud at her offended expression as she went on to catalogue how very full of health she was, but then she seemed to finally acknowledge what he was saying and burst out, “How could my cousins have misled you like that? Why would they?”
She choked on a sob and instinctively he put out his hand and placed it upon her forearm, not minding when she moved it to grip his fingers as if he could provide her the comfort he was in the process of denying her. Now he was the one to choke on his emotion. How desirable she looked with her moist eyes staring at him as if he were documenting someone else’s failings and not his own.
He turned slightly and took her other hand. The horses were moving at a gentle clip now. Inside, they could barely make out one another’s features, but the interior was thick with feeling. Sylvester drew in a strained breath. “Yo
ur cousins conceived of a cunning plan to entrap me when they saw how much I admired you. They thought they could achieve your happiness by securing me as a husband.” His heart hitched and he didn’t move away when the carriage rounded a bend and she was thrown upon him, though she moved back quickly. “Yes, they tricked me and they tricked you, too, by saying you were not long for this world, and they’ve made neither of us the happier for it. I’m sorry you’ve been deceived.”
He cleared his throat and spoke the truth. “Believe me, Miss Brightwell, if I had the funds to provide for both of us in the manner you deserve, I’d be on bended knee this moment.” Never had he been more sincere. “The fact is, however, I can only continue my life of relative ease—and indeed, provide a life of comfort to my future wife—if I were to marry someone with...”
“Money,” she supplied, which silenced him a moment as he wished the plain facts of the matter didn’t make him sound so mercurial.
He squeezed her hand. “You deserve a life of greater comfort than I can afford to give you, for without money, our love would struggle and die.”
She drew in her breath on an audible gasp. “Then you do love me?”
She was too close for comfort and her direct question could only be answered with the truth. He’d give it to her, but that would be all. He would not forget himself and make declarations that would give her joyful visions of tripping down the aisle with him having overcome all the arguments he put forward against such a journey.
He wasn’t sure how it came to be but suddenly she was in his arms, her soft cheek pressed against his, her little fingers gripping his as she brought their joined hands up to her breast. “You love me but you do not wish to marry me,” she clarified softly.
“It’s not that I do not wish to marry you, I simply am not in a position to honourably offer marriage to you.” He was very conscious of the swell of her bosom beneath the hand she clasped and had to force himself not to caress it.
One last time, he thought as, despite his very best intentions, he smoothed the silken fabric gently over her bodice, delighted to hear how her breath quickened. He caught himself up and was about to withdraw his hand when she caged it with her own and put her lips to his in the gentlest, briefest of kisses.
The sweetness and tenderness was too much. His body was on fire but her innocence had to be protected. Yet one kiss was surely not too much to ask?
“I’m going to leave you soon, Miss Brightwell,” he murmured, eyes closed but reluctant to move his mouth away from the proximity of her lovely face. Her lips were a hairsbreadth away from his own.
“I know,” she murmured, her soft breath like a caress.
It was almost more than he could bear; as was the fact that her voice was filled with forgiveness rather than the pain and recrimination he deserved as she went on, “But you have been honest with me, and in fact you’ve been duped so I can hold no grudges.” She drew in a laboured breath. “Of course you must ask Miss Huntingdon to marry you. I would just ask that you kiss me one last time.”
It was more than he could have hoped for and he’d meant to do so with chaste gentleness in a farewell tribute. Certainly he had no intention of doing anything that would whip up desires he could not control…but who would have thought that gentle innocence would unleash such a beast within him? She was good to the core of her being and he was a cad who could only cause her hurt and grief.
Yet as their mouths fused, his good intentions fled and indeed he was the beast, uncaged; only by the greatest exercise of restraint resisting the opportunity to take full advantage of the invitation she extended towards him as she draped herself over his lap.
Her breasts pressed against his chest, heaved with emotion, while her soft sighs of pleasure only excited him more. Their closeness was infused with raging need yet Sylvester was careful to limit her exposure only to kisses.
They’d done so much more than this, before, but the knowledge this would be their last encounter charged it with an eroticism so staggeringly intense he thought he might lose his senses to the desire to possess her in every sense of the word.
Except he could not; though with her mouth so ripe and yielding and her kisses so inflammatory, it was difficult to remember why he could not.
Money.
A vision flashed before him of his mother; of the estate he would likely inherit. Entailed and needing funds to keep intact the heritage of hundred of years.
If only things had only been different… Lord, how he wished he could make her his while she was so very willing. If not for all the good reasons he’d catalogued preventing such a union, he’d dish out whatever was required for a special licence or whisk her off to Gretna Green. If not for his mother and family expectation, the estate, and the knowledge that he’d soon have to provide for a growing family, he’d do what he wished above all things he was able to do: make her a marriage offer.
It was she who brought their kiss to an end. Drawing back, she looked at him with those unsettling clear eyes of hers that, in the light of the lamp under which they’d drawn to a halt, he saw glistened with unshed tears, she whispered, still breathless, “I’m not blaming anyone…except myself for being so naïve.”
