‘And if I did?’
‘I would not believe you. For you threw yourself into my arms easily enough. You let me hold you. You did not seem to realise I wasn’t your beloved.’ He fixed her with his dark gaze. ‘You would know the arms of the man that you loved, Beatrice.’
And she remembered the way he had held her again. The way his hand had slid down over her rear, and she felt horrible, scalding heat go through her body.
Another clue, she felt.
But he was not asking for a true marriage. He had an heir.
It is not different than James, then.
And yet it felt as if it was.
‘James is my friend,’ she said. ‘And the idea of marrying for convenient reasons suited him.’
‘Marriage is only ever convenience, if it is not, it is an inconvenience.’
‘Some people fall in love,’ she said.
Except she had never known anyone who had. She was quite certain that Eleanor loved Hugh, but there was no reciprocation. And there would be no marriage.
‘That is very rare, Beatrice, and even if they do... It does not last.’
She wondered, then, if he was speaking of his wife. Of course, it hadn’t lasted. She’d died. Beatrice had never known her. She had not seen Briggs at all during his brief marriage. They had been mainly in London. She had never met his son either.
A strange, twisting sensation assaulted her stomach. His son.
Would she be his mother?
Everything was changing so quickly. She had an idea in her mind of what it would be like to marry James. He had said that he wished to travel abroad, and she was quite amenable to that. She had looked forward to seeing Paris, and Italy. To spending time in London. All things that she had never done. She had been cosseted. She had been kept to herself. With him, she knew that she would go to more social engagements. And together they would enjoy themselves. For she did enjoy his company very much. She liked Briggs. She always had. But it was different. It was simply different.
Everything about him was different.
One of the many things she had no name for.
‘Your brother wishes us to marry here. In the church.’
She nodded. ‘Yes. That... That would be fine.’ She had not thought about where her wedding would take place. Not even when she had concocted all of this with James. She had not given further consideration to any of this. Not really. She had pictures in her mind of a life. But she had not truly thought about what all this might entail. Yes, she had thought that she had been prepared to face Hugh’s ire, and that was something. But there were so many other things along the way that she had not fully considered.
She curled her fingers into fists, stabbing at her palms, as she bit the inside of her cheek, looking for that sort of grounding that occurred when she was able to overcome pain.
But then, there was a strong grip on her chin and she found her face being tilted upwards. She met his eyes. Those dark, shockingly blue eyes,
and she felt...
Calm. Quiet.
As if the storm inside her had been halted by the touch of his hand.
‘You have nothing to fear from me.’
‘I know,’ she said.
Her breath was at a standstill, her heart suspended in her chest. And then he moved away, and the world began to move again.
‘You look frightened.’
‘I’m not,’ she said.