She looked relieved. “Thank you.” She fell silent for another moment. Nathan guessed she was gathering her thoughts. “I find that I am at war with myself.”
“Indeed?”
“All my life, I have been told that it is a sin to know a man as a wife knows her husband before I am married. I have heard many stories of fallen women and the hardship their lives become. My mind knows this.”
“But?” Nathan prodded when she fell silent again. This was nothing he hadn’t heard before from countless mothers. He had thought that Sara’s thirst for adventure had overridden this lesson, but it appeared to be a temporary thing. The disappointment continued to solidify in his stomach.
He had not realized how much he had wanted this adventure as well.
“But when I am close to you, when I see you, those thoughts are replaced by others. Ones I know I should not have, but cannot stop. I don’t even know if I want to stop.”
That gave him hope. He prodded her again to make sure. “What sort of thoughts?”
Her face, already pink from the wind and likely her confession, deepened some more. “Thoughts like,” she swallowed. “Thoughts like the ones you shared with me at the fair that night.”
“Is that so?”
She nodded. Her voice had fallen to a whisper. Nathan stepped closer again to hear her better and to keep the wind from snatching her words away. “I want you to kiss me. With your tongue, again and again. I want you to touch me like you did last night, only more and better, if that makes any sense. I know what this makes me, but I can’t seem to stop it. Even now, even with what I just told you, a part of me wants you to take me back to the manor so we can be private, and the other part of me hates me for it. I have lied to my friends, opened myself up to carnal sin and have said more brazen things in the last week than I have my entire life. I do not recognize myself anymore.” Misery covered her face.
Well, if that didn’t have his shoulders prickling again. For the better part of his political career, Nathan had learned the skill of not feeling like a cad—one couldn’t, in his chosen profession. Too many broken promises and disappointed constituents. But seeing Sara tearing herself apart like this—he rolled his shoulders to rid himself of the nettles burrowing under his skin. Being an honorable man had not been an expectation as a politician and he found it an uncomfortable fit now, despite its necessity.
He said, “You are under no obligation to see our arrangement through to the end.” Primordial Nathan reared his head and howled in anger. Nathan continued. “I have no wish to seduce unwilling women.”
“But that’s where my confusion lies,” Sara replied, still holding her bonnet to keep it from flying away. “I am uncertain if I am willing or not. What about my adventure?”
“Adventures come in many forms. Sexual knowledge need not be one of them.”
“What are you saying?”
Nathan’s mind raced. He had to come up with a plan to have her stay and satisfy her conscience as well. He would allow her to leave if she truly wanted, but he must try first to prevent that. “We can make this week about doing things you have never done before. That would be considered an adventure, would it not?”
She regarded him for a moment. “I suppose it could,” she replied slowly. “But what sort of things do you mean?”
He shrugged. “You tell me. What are some things you have never done but always wanted to?”
Sara looked off into the distance toward Cloverfields. “Travel,” she said after a few moments. “I have always wanted to go to Scotland.”
Nathan felt one of the corners of his mouth tug up. “Well, I can’t get you to Scotland and back in a week, but you have traveled here, a portion of it on your own. That seems pretty adventurous to me.”
A responding smile crept over her face. “I did do that, didn’t I?”
He nodded. “And there was nothing sinful about it. At least, not in the eyes of God. Society is another matter but the ramifications are less eternal.”
Her face pinkened again at his teasing tone. He hadn’t teased in years. That did explain his lousy attempt. “What else have you always wanted to do?”