Unclaimed (Turner #2)(29)

She let out a little laugh. “Because you are so beautiful yourself?”

“Because I intend to win her affections to me, mind and soul.” And then, as if in an afterthought, he added: “And body. I definitely look forward to winning her body.”

“Is that why you haven’t married, then?” she asked. “Because no woman is good enough for the great Sir Mark? You have confessed to the sin of pride. Is this just more of it?”

“Not quite.”

“Not quite.” She smiled at him and walked a few paces away before turning, her skirts whirling around her ankles. “I don’t understand you. You want. You desire. You lust. You also believe in chastity. But this is no impossible dilemma, Sir Mark. Find an acceptable girl, marry her and assuage your lusts to your heart’s content.”

“Oh, I’ve thought it over, often enough.” He shrugged again and looked away. “In excruciating detail, sometimes. A quick marriage would serve, I suppose, for a few months. Maybe a few years. But marriage is for a lifetime, and male chastity means there must be fidelity afterward, as well.”

“For a man of your temperament, faithfulness should not prove a problem.”

He shrugged. “No? Imagine that I chose a girl who was simply acceptable—someone who would simply do. And then imagine that two years later, I met someone who was everything I wanted—clever, kind and beautiful. The sort of woman who has the integrity to make a better man of me. The kind of woman who might laugh at my pride while still loving me.”

He turned and looked at her.

“Imagine,” he said, “I met her, and I was tied to someone who would just do. I want a wife I can love, Mrs. Farleigh. One who I want to be faithful to because there is simply nobody else for me, not because it is the right thing to do. I don’t want to resent my fidelity. Or my wife. And so…I wait.”

“What are you trying to do to me?” she asked, stepping back from the intensity of his gaze.

Her foot slipped on a rock—enough to unbalance her, just a little. He reached for her. She knewit didn’t mean anything, knew that he meant only to steady her arm—and yet still she flinched from his outstretched hand. It threw her entirely off balance. She went sprawling, her palms smacking painfully into rock.

“Did you hurt yourself?”

She examined her gloves—easier than looking up. Tiny bits of gravel had ripped through the fabric, abrading the flesh beneath. Her ankle stung, but only a little. “Just my pride.”

He started to extend a hand toward her to help her up and then grimaced and pulled it back. Instead he crouched down beside her, so that his head was level with hers.

“Look here,” he said quietly, “I’m not trying to do anything to you. I wish you’d understand that.”

“But—”

“But nothing. I don’t want to take you. I don’t want to possess you. Right now, I just want to see whether you’ve injured yourself.”

Jessica swallowed hard and stared at the ground. Then, tentatively, she held out her hands, wrist up. He made no move to take them. Foolish of her to be thankful for that. But his finger traced the frayed edge of her glove, brushed at little bits of gravel that had embedded itself in her skin.

“I’m not even bleeding,” she said.

“No.”

She looked up. Their eyes met. She didn’t know what to think of him, didn’t know what to think of herself.

“I’m hunting for sport, not meat,” he said. “Because I like you. Because in London, my every last step is dogged by gossipers and hangers-on. If I talk to a woman once, it’s in the papers the next day. If I talk to her twice, people start making bets. I hardly dare talk to anyone a third time.” He let out a sigh and sat back on a rock. “I intend to wait until I find the right woman. But I miss female companionship—and no, that’s not a euphemism for anything except…this. I like women. I like you.”

“There are a great many other women besides me.”

“I had noticed. That is the worst of London. I don’t dare let myself admire anyone. Not even a little. It’s an impossible dilemma. How can I know if a lady is the right one, without paying her some attention? But the instant I show even the slightest interest, the public assumes that marriage is a foregone conclusion. If I were later to decide she wasn’t right, I would embarrass her. Publicly. All it would take was three dances, spread over two weeks, and speculation would run wild. I can’t decide to marry on the basis of three dances.”

His fingers hovered over her wrist. She could feel her pulse beating against them.

“There’s a reporter in town now.”

“I’ll get rid of him.” He looked off into the distance.

She nodded mutely.

“You understand, then, what I’m telling you? I just want more than three dances. And you’re perfect.” His hand skimmed down her palm, down the joints of her fingers, to her fingertips. “I can’t possibly lead you astray, because you hate me already.” He was smiling as he said that.

Jessica swallowed. Just the touch of his fingertips—nothing more.

She might have responded with artifice. She was supposed to, if she meant to seduce him. But she could hardly seduce him, when even a touch made her flinch. Besides, she’d spent months in a dark haze. This feeling, this tentative flutter in her belly—this was hers. This was sunlight on her face. It was the warmth she’d dreamed of. It was a curl of honest attraction, the first she’d experienced in years. And so slowly, deliberately, she crooked her fingertips under his, so that the curve of his hand caught against hers.