After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(67)

He didn’t answer. He’d made a set of plates for her—partially, at least. It wasn’t as if he could hide the fact that he had some finer feelings.

“We can’t give each other anything else,” she said quietly. “But I can give you that. If that’s what you want—if you want a slow falling in love, if you want joy, if you want not to be stuck with a woman simply because she’ll do and you’ve a hankering for pleasure—then I will make sure you have it.”

His throat almost closed.

“I’m sorry for what I did earlier.” She gave him a firm nod. “Teasing you, when we were practicing. I will not let myself forget. We have too many enemies in this world to be at odds with each other on the question of how we feel.”

“And what if we decide we want to choose each other?”

She didn’t speak for a long time. She bit her lip. She looked away.

“I’ve been alone a long time,” she finally said. “I’ve wanted someone. Anyone. Rector Miles made me believe that when I told myself I would be loved, it was a legion of devils driving me into sin. He told me the tiny voice of doubt I always heard was my sole hold on righteousness.” Her voice shook. “But I refuse. I cannot believe it is evil to hope somebody will love me someday.”

“Cam.”

“I never needed that person to be a husband. I imagined being a faithful companion to an elderly woman. A bright spot in the day of a shopkeeper. And yes, sometimes a wife.” She looked over at him. “I don’t have to be your wife, Adrian. But can I be your friend? No matter what, even after all this is over? It would be more than I have ever had.”

There was nothing for it. He stood. He walked to her again. His arms came around her once more, this time in friendship. His head leaned against hers.

“Yes,” he said. “Please. I think we could both use a friend.”





Chapter Seventeen





Camilla lay alone in her bed that night, knowing that she should sleep. Tomorrow they would embark on a long journey. If they were successful, Adrian would disappear from her life.

In her heart, she knew she was susceptible to praise. That she was practically starved for affection. Even the offer of a scrap of goodwill would have had her heart in a tangle. But he’d given her a veritable feast. Actual respect? Friendship? Encouragement? Eight plates of tigers?

Of course she had fallen in love with him. It didn’t mean anything—she would have fallen in love with anyone who gave her as much.

No matter how much her brain told her this, her heart still hurt.

Part of her wanted to go back to their time together in that room. To that moment when he’d looked at her and he’d desired her, when their lips had come together in heat and fire. She wanted to throw her inconvenient sense of right and wrong in the dustbin.

She didn’t want her stupid conscience. She just wanted his hands on her.

It would take so little to get it back and if she did, she could have him forever. All she had to do was stand. Go down the corridor to his room at the end of the hall. If she were to show up in nothing but a nightgown…

If they consummated this thing between them, there would be no annulment.

She put her hands over her face.

God. She was a horrible person to even think such a grasping, calculating thing. To trap another person for the rest of their lives?

That wasn’t love. She knew it wasn’t love.

Still, she shut her eyes and let her imagination run wild.

She didn’t want to trap him. She’d spent enough time with people who didn’t like her; she could hardly hope to spend the rest of her life with someone who felt the same. She couldn’t even find joy in imagining it.

Her breath hissed out.

But what if he wanted you?

What if he was in his room, thinking the things she was thinking? What if he was thinking not of his imminent freedom, but of his loss? What if he decided he wanted her?

He might stand up in his night things. She didn’t know what he wore to bed, but her imagination stuttered, and she imagined…nothing. Nothing at all. He’d feel the way she did. He’d find a robe, or perhaps a spare sheet, for modesty’s sake.

She shut her eyes, thinking of what he’d look in the moonlight, his skin showing like midnight through almost translucent bedsheets.

He’d stand. Pace his room, thinking of what to do. He’d make his decision after an hour of deliberation—that he didn’t want an annulment, that he wanted her instead.

Adrian did not strike her as the sort of person to put off acting on decisions, once they were made. He’d take off down the hall. He would tap lightly on her door.

She would never tell him no, not in a million years. He’d tell her that he had chosen, that he didn’t want to be without her.

And Camilla would reach out and pull the ends of that sheet—in her imagination, it was a strip of almost sheer gossamer—from his grasp.

They’d kiss the way they had wanted to kiss tonight—skin to skin, his hands holding her in place as if she were precious, as if he didn’t want to let go.

She could imagine him trailing kisses down her neck. She could imagine herself giving in. The heat of his breath against her throat; the slide of his body against hers. His hardness.

She wasn’t a virgin. She knew what would happen. She wanted it to happen; she wanted it rather desperately.