From Governess to Countess (Matches Made in Scandal #1)(60)
‘No.’ A lump rose in her throat. ‘I wish I could help you more.’
‘You have, more than you can know.’ He kissed her brow again. ‘Now it’s time, in your own words, for me to help myself, and to let you get on with helping yourself.’
A tear trickled down her cheek. She made no attempt to catch it. ‘You think it’s time for me to head back to England?’
‘Allison.’ He pulled her tight against his chest, hugging her so close she could hear his heart beating even through the thick wool of his uniform coat. ‘I think Grigory was right, it’s time I stopped burying my head in the sand. Not about the children, but about you.’
He let her go, holding her at arm’s length. ‘From the moment you walked into my life, I wanted you. I’ve never met anyone like you, nor am likely to again. I know it won’t last because it can’t, for all sorts of reasons, not least the fact that you’ve a perfect future back in England mapped out for yourself, but the thing is, the longer it goes on, the more likely we are to get hurt. Or at least I am. I can’t speak for you.’
‘Aleksei, you know you can.’ Another tear trickled down her cheek. Her throat was clogged. ‘It’s one of the things about us, it has been from the start, hasn’t it, this—this unspoken connection between us. You know I want you every bit as much as you want me. When we make love...’
He swore under his breath. ‘Don’t say any more.’ He swallowed hard. ‘It’s time for me to stop procrastinating. Whatever that means, it is not your concern. And as for the children, they will miss you greatly, though not as much, I suspect as you will miss them. Your work is done here, Allison, and I’ve no right to keep you with me simply because I’m not ready to let you go yet.’
Yet. Not yet, but soon. They had no future together. She knew that. She was a herbalist and part-time governess. He was a count. She could shed her tears over that fact, and leave him with that watery memory, or she could make the most of what very little time they had left now, and create sweeter memories to sustain them in the lifetime spent apart that lay ahead of them.
Allison brushed her cheeks dry. She smiled mistily up at him. She twined her arms around him. ‘You’re right. I wish I could say otherwise, but I can’t. Though you’re wrong about one thing, Aleksei. You don’t have to let me go. Not quite yet. Make love to me,’ she said, and then she kissed him.
Chapter Twelve
It was still very early. The sky was overcast, a lowering grey that promised that particularly unpleasant drizzly soft rain that wasn’t quite rain, but soaked you anyway. Allison, having spent a torrid night tossing and turning, made her way quickly out to the fernery, her favourite of the succession houses, in search of solitude before resuming her governess duties.
Sitting down under the now familiar statue of Aphrodite, she unbuttoned her cloak and massaged her throbbing temples. To call yesterday a bit of a day, as Seanmhair would have, was a serious understatement. The first revelation had been born of the indignity of her being slapped down at the children’s ball. From the pain of her confession to Aleksei, had come catharsis and then a liberating hope, a bright new vision for her future that the herbalist in her couldn’t wait to embrace. It was as if all her life she had been preparing for this, lending meaning even to the role she had played in her own downfall, and the scandal she’d had to weather as a result.
So many ideas, so many plans would be fighting for room in her head, were it not for the second, even more momentous revelation emerging from yesterday. She was in love with Aleksei.
Not so much a revelation really, more like a secret that had been suppressed. Of course she was in love with him. Now she’d admitted it, it was impossible to imagine she could ever have been anything else. The attraction had been irresistible from the start. She’d never felt so drawn to a man, never desired any man the way she wanted him. But it wasn’t only that. He understood her. He knew what mattered to her and what didn’t, because he understood in a way she’d thought no man ever could, how much a part of her were her skills. Her need to heal. Her need to try to ease any sort of pain or suffering, whether it was the minor ailments of the Derevenko servants, or the heartache of his wards. He encouraged her. Even more importantly, she was certain he would never try to change her, never expect her to sacrifice her life for his. She’d always thought that there could be no room in her heart or her life for anything other than her vocation, but how wrong she had been. For the right man, for this man, there was a veritable palace in her heart.
The right man, but Aleksei was wrong in every other respect. If circumstances had been different—oh, so very different—then how blissfully happy they could be. He’d admitted he cared, last night, and that had been the most difficult thing for her to deal with. Her poor aching heart longed to declare itself, but she would not cause him the pain of having to reject her, as he must.
Think of it! She forced herself to do so, yet again, in the hope of extinguishing hope completely. She was as low-born as it was possible to be, with no idea who her father was, only the one certainty, that he had never been married to her mother. Aleksei was as high-born as it was possible to be, second in line to the most powerful and wealthiest dukedom in Russia. Even promiscuous St Petersburg society, which accepted without a blink of an eye, Count Derevenko taking a nonentity of a governess as his mistress, would not tolerate him taking her as his wife. She would be shunned, which she cared not for, save that it would hurt Aleksei, though not as much as the pain she would bear when society ostracised the pair of them. No, she was born on the wrong side of the blanket, and she would be on the wrong side of the fence for Aleksei for ever.