Notorious Pleasures (Maiden Lane #2)(61)

She ducked down again.

He propped himself up and peered over the side of the bed. She knelt, rummaging through her pile of clothes. Her head, even down-bent, did not look welcoming.

He sighed. “Stay a little while and I’ll call for some tea.”

She stood again, pulling on her petticoats. “I can’t be seen here.”

He was tempted to ask why she’d bothered to come in the first place, then, but prudence—not usually a virtue of his—stilled his lips. He knew he should talk to her, but he couldn’t think of the words that would persuade her to stay. His head felt thick, filled with dirty lint and smoke left over from the night awake in the warehouse.

He wasn’t prepared for this, damn it.

She had on her stays now and was clumsily lacing them. No doubt she usually had the aid of a maid. He felt a strange kind of tender pang at the sight.

He rolled to sit on the edge of the bed, his legs spread, and pulled a corner of the sheets over his lap. “Let me help you.”

She stumbled back—and half turned away. “I… I can manage.”

“Are you weeping?” he asked in horror.

“No!”

But she was. Dear God. She was crying.

He didn’t know what to do, how to make this right. “Marry me.”

She stilled and turned, her eyelashes spiked with tears. “What?”

Had he just said that? But he looked her in the eye and repeated the words. “Marry me.”

It was as if something clicked into place—a missing piece he hadn’t even known he lacked—and he knew, suddenly and completely, that marrying Hero was the right thing to do. He didn’t want anyone to ever hurt her. He wanted to be a shield for her. For the first time since he’d come back to London, he felt as if he knew what his purpose was. He felt right.

Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to feel the same way.

She shook her head, stifling a sob, and bent to pick up her dress.

His pride was pricked. He stood, the sheet falling away. “What say you?”

“Don’t be silly,” she muttered as she fought her way into the dress.

His head reared back as if she’d struck him. “You find an offer of marriage from me silly?”

“Yes.” She had the dress over her head and started lacing up the front. “You only ask because you’ve bedded me.”

He set his hands on his hips as anger rose in his chest. His head throbbed—he hadn’t enough sleep in days—and he tried to keep his voice even. “I’ve taken your virginity, my lady. Pardon me if I think that a good reason to take you to wife as well.”

“Oh, dear Lord.” She turned to face him. Her eyes skipped over his nude body, and then she held her gaze firmly above his waist. “Have you not listened to a word I’ve said these last days? Marriage is a contract, a bargain between families. A pact for the future, solemnly thought out and sincerely entered into. It isn’t something one just jumps into on a whim.”

He shook his head. “This isn’t a whim.”

“Then why didn’t you ask me before you bedded me?”

He stared at her, tempted to answer that he’d been thinking with the smaller of his two heads before he’d bedded her, thank you very much.

But she was already continuing, her voice horribly gentle. “You and I have no similar goals or intentions. You told me less than a fortnight ago that you never intended to marry. You’re offering out of guilt or misplaced gallantry, neither of which is a solid foundation for a marriage. I’ve made a terrible mistake”—her voice wobbled, making his heart constrict—“but calling off my marriage to Mandeville would simply compound it.”

He gaped at her. When had she thought all of this out?

He could refute all of her points, given a night’s sound sleep, but one stuck out in particular. “You’re not going to marry Thomas.”

She arched her eyebrows. “Is that why you bedded me?”

“No!” he roared.

“Good,” she said, perfectly reasonable, perfectly perfect. “My arrangement with Thomas is between him and me. It has nothing to do with you.”

“I beg to differ,” he said, the words sounding stupidly pompous even to his own ears, standing there naked, arguing with the woman he’d ignobly deflowered. “I’m Thomas’s brother and the man you just f*cked.”

She flinched. “I hate that word. Please don’t use it around me anymore.”

“Damn it, Hero!”

“I need to leave now,” she said politely, and did just that.

For a moment he stared, incredulous and stunned, at the closed door. What had happened? What had he done?

His eyes dropped to the white sheets on the bed, and he saw a small smear of blood there. The sight tore at his heart. Griffin swore and slammed his fist into the bedpost, splitting his knuckles.

Deedle came in the room, looking around brightly. “I passed a lady in the hallway, m’lord, in quite the hurry. Right pretty, though. Didn’t think you was up for it, if’n you know what I mean, after last night.”

Griffin groaned and dropped back to the bed, his aching head in his hands. “Shut up, Deedle.”

THE DAY WAS bright and sunny, even in St. Giles, and Silence Hollingbrook smiled as she made her way through the morning market.