What Happened at Midnight(32)

He swore. “I’ve three days yet before I can finish my work at Beauregard’s. I suppose I can put it off—”

“I don’t want you to come with me,” she said, just as quietly. But her words had a gentle finality to them.

He pushed away from her. “Tell me, then. Tell me you don’t love me. Tell me you can live without me. Don’t leave me here to wonder for another eighteen months if you’ll be my wife.”

The rain was still coming down hard, the wind driving it in gusts against the window.

“Your wife?” she said softly. “John, I intend to be so much more than that.”

He shut his eyes.

Her hand sought his. “We can have so much more than that. You’ll see,” she said soothingly.

“Will I?”

“I only want the same chances you had.” She reached out for his hand. “I want your quiet confidence. You set yourself impossible tasks and you solve them. By yourself. There’s…there’s one thing I need to put right. I want you to let me go, so I can do it. No—I need to know that you will let me go.”

He wanted to refuse, to deny her. He wanted to pin her in place. But Sir Walter had put her in a cage for long enough. All he could do was watch her leave.

He felt hoarse, and he hadn’t even been shouting. “You’ll come back, after?”

Her only answer was to kiss his cheek—sweetly, not passionately, and to move away.

“Oh, no,” he said. “I’ll let you go—but not like that, Mary. Not like that.” He set his hand on her shoulder and gently, oh so gently, turned her toward him.

I love you. He kissed the words into her lips. Her chin. Her neck.

I love you. The tip of her breast brushed his hands; her sigh of acceptance nearly undid him.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Caress after caress bore those words. He swallowed the emotions he felt and gave them back to her as kisses. And perhaps she heard what he meant, because she stretched out beneath him. Her eyes were shut, her hair strewn across the pillow. She threw her head back, and the long column of her throat begged for his kisses.

I love you.

He kissed the hollow in her neck, the point of her chin. But when he made to kiss her lips, she turned away from him. He was losing her, and he had no way to hold on.

“I wish you every happiness,” he whispered.

Even without me.

But he didn’t say that last. He didn’t dare.

Chapter Twelve

IT TOOK DAYS BEFORE John finished the drainage work on Beauregard’s farm and headed home. He felt bruised and weary. Even though his nightly walks had come to an end when Mary left, he had found himself unable to sleep. She had money this time. She would be well, wouldn’t she?

Still, he vowed that if he didn’t hear from her when he arrived back in Southampton, he would search her out, and this time, he wouldn’t stop until he found her.

But there was no rest to be had when he arrived back at home. His sister met him at the railway station even though he hadn’t given her any word about the precise day of his arrival.

“John,” she said, waving madly at him from the platform.

“Elizabeth.” He managed not to groan her name in greeting.

Don’t ask me how it went.

“So,” she said. There was a gleam in her eye—the kind of sisterly gleam that suggested that somehow, she was going to make his life miserable. “How did it all go?”

“Hmm,” he said, warily.

“Never mind.” She spoke swiftly. She always spoke swiftly. “There will be time for you to tell me everything later, and besides, I can already guess how it went. I was sure you would be coming in today. Come now; we haven’t much time.”

“Time for what?” he asked in befuddlement, but she was already sweeping away in front of him, gesturing to her waiting carriage.

He followed after, feeling more than a little confused. A footman relieved him of his pair of valises and stored them in the boot. He had no choice but to join Eliza in the carriage. But instead of setting off in the direction of his farm, the driver turned and headed toward the center of town.

“Don’t tell me,” she said, giving him a shake of her head. “When you saw Mary Chartley, it took you three minutes to lose all hint of sternness and to become nice again.”

“Uh… No. It took days, in fact.”

“And you count it days too long.”

He let out an aggravated breath of air. “Yes, well. You’ve got the right of it.”

She wagged her finger at him, but there was no real exasperation in the gesture.

“I asked her to marry me,” he said. “And if I can find her, she might still say yes.”

“Might say yes!” Eliza rolled her eyes. “You mean to tell me that you couldn’t even get her to agree to that? Good God, John.”

“I thought she’d had enough of people ordering her about.”

His sister met his eyes, and she shook her head again. “In any event, I did say that there would be time for all that later. We’ve urgent business in town. I need you.”

He sat up straighter. “What do you need me for?”

“I need you to be male,” she said. “If you’re not in the room, nobody will take us seriously. If they insist on talking to you, as they always do, direct them back to me, as I know what is going on.”