Stephanie Laurens - A Gentleman's Honor

“You find the balls a bore.” She looked ahead at the circular fountain set in the lawn. “There’s no reason you need dance attendance on me there. Not anymore.”

She glanced at him. There was a frown gathering in his eyes. She needed to discourage him from acting so overtly possessively. She smiled, trying to soften the hint. “And tonight, you need to be elsewhere searching for A. C.—there’s no need to feel it’s necessary to escort me, or that your absence will bother me—that I’ll be in any way discomposed.”

Her words were gentle, clear, her expression as always open and honest; Tony heard what she said, but wasn’t sure he understood. She was explaining something to him, but what?

His brain couldn’t seem to function as incisively as usual. The odd feeling in his chest, a deadening, dulling sensation, didn’t help. Halting, he drew in a breath, glanced, unseeing, at the fountain. “If you’re sure?”

He looked at her face, into her eyes—and saw something very close to relief in the green.

Her smile was genuine, reassuring. “Yes. I’ll be perfectly content.”

The assurance he’d asked for, yet not what he’d wanted to hear.

A babel of youthful voices spilled down from the terrace; they both looked and saw the three boys and two girls come tumbling down to the lawns.

Turning, they headed toward the children. As they reached the main lawn, Tony felt Alicia’s gaze, glanced down, and met her eyes.

Again, she smiled reassuringly, then patted his arm as she looked ahead. “I’ll be here, waiting, when you get home.”

He’d accepted the arrangement because he’d had little choice. Yet the suspicion—now hardening to conviction— that something was going awry between them grew, fueled by that part of him that had heard her words as something approaching a dismissal.

A dismissal he’d had neither justification nor opportunity to challenge.

The incident had jolted him in a way he wasn’t accustomed to; faced with a raft of unexpected uncertainties, he’d concluded he needed to think before doing anything, before reacting. Yet by one o’clock the next morning, when he silently let himself into his house, his uncertainty had only grown, until he, his usual forceful personality, felt paralyzed.

One thing he’d realized: he didn’t have any real idea of what she was thinking, of how she saw their relationship.

He’d told her he loved her; she hadn’t reciprocated.

He’d never before said those words to any woman, but in the past he’d been the recipient of such declarations too often for his comfort.

Alicia hadn’t said the words. Frowning, he climbed the stairs. Until now, he hadn’t thought he needed to hear them; until now, her physical acceptance, all that had passed between them, had been assurrance enough, guarantee enough.

But no more. Now he was uncertain. Of her.

Even though she’d assured him she’d be waiting, he wasn’t at all sure what he’d find when he entered her room. But she was indeed there, yet not quite as he’d expected. She wasn’t in bed, but standing by the side of the bow window, wrapped in her robe, arms folded beneath her breasts. Shoulder and head resting against the window frame, she looked out on the moonlit gardens.

As usual, she hadn’t heard him enter. He made no sound as he closed the door, then stood in the shadows and studied her.

She was deep in thought, her body completely still, her mind elsewhere.

He hesitated, then stepped forward more definitely; she heard him and turned. Through the shadows he saw her gentle smile. She settled back against the window frame. “Did you manage to identify A. C.’s company?”

He halted by the bed. “It’s Ellicot.”

“The one that used many different shipping lines?”

He nodded; the subject was not the one uppermost in his mind. He eased off his coat. “Tomorrow, we’ll start closing in, but we’ll need to be careful not to alert A. C. We want him still in England when we learn his name.”

He tossed the coat onto a chair, then looked at her. She’d remained at the window, leaning back against the frame, the silk robe draped about her, her arms folded. He sensed she was comfortable, at ease, yet distant.

The bed was behind him; stepping back, he sat on its side. Through the shadows, continued to study her.

He’d manipulated the situation and gained his objective—her, here, under his roof. In his house where he could share her bed easily, where she was protected constantly by his servants. He’d achieved all he’d wanted, all he’d thought they needed, yet… something was askew. The situation had developed undercurrents, ones he couldn’t read well enough to counter.

She seemed to be drawing back. Not turning away, but sliding from his grasp. Inch by inch, step by tiny step…

He needed to hear words, yet he couldn’t—didn’t know how to—ask for them. Dragging in a short breath, he looked down at his hands, loosely clasped between his thighs. “Perhaps”—keeping his tone ruthlessly even, he looked up—“we should discuss the wedding.”

She shook her head—instantly, without the smallest hesitation. “No, not yet. There’s no sense making any plans until Geoffrey tells his mother, and they set a date.”

He opened his lips to correct her; there was no reason he and she had to wait on Geoffrey and Adriana’s arrangements…

The realization she’d thought he’d meant Geoffrey and Adriana’s wedding, not theirs, burst on him before he uttered a word. It was superseded almost instantly by a blinding insight—the idea of their wedding—that he might be alluding to that—hadn’t even occurred to her.

She shifted to stare out of the window once more. “It’ll be upon us soon enough, but you needn’t worry about the details. I’m sure they’ll want to marry in Devon, and that would be wisest…” She paused, then softly added, “Considering my deception. A small, private affair would be best…”

Alicia let her words trail away. She’d been thinking of the wedding, of Geoffrey and Adriana’s growing happiness, and struggling to contain a reaction perilously close to jealousy.

She drew in a slow breath, felt a welling need to rail, not against Geoffrey and Adriana—heaven forbid, she’d worked so hard to bring about her sister’s happiness—but against a fate that was so twisted as to make her live through, have to smile through Adriana and Geoffrey’s joy while knowing she would never achieve the same. Worse, while knowing she’d willingly and intentionally sacrificed her own chance at such happiness to ensure her sister made the marriage she deserved.

When she’d made the decision to leave behind any thought of marriage and masquerade as a widow, the critical decision from which all else had flowed, she hadn’t known what she’d been so ready to turn her back on. Hadn’t appreciated her until recently suppressed dreams, hadn’t felt their tug.

Now she knew, now she had. Fate was indeed cruel.

Yet among her regrets there was one she didn’t have. She didn’t regret, couldn’t regret, her relationship with Tony. If she couldn’t marry him, then she wouldn’t marry anyone else, so there was, she’d finally, bitterly, ironically and rather sternly concluded, no point in dwelling on her dreams.

Aside from all else, given his possessiveness, given all she sensed in him, honor notwithstanding, she wasn’t at all sure he’d let her go.

Her senses suddenly leapt; she looked up, eyes widening as she found him—as she’d suspected—by her side. Straightening, she faced him.

He met her gaze briefly, searched her face, then his eyes returned to lock on hers. “I’ll never let you go.”

The words were quiet, steely—infinitely dangerous.