In the Arms of a Marquess(72)

“I did not know to expect anything else of Englishwomen. I had never met a woman like you who spoke her thoughts, and all of them honest.”

“You knew Constance.”

He drew back and looked at her carefully. “Constance hides her own secrets.”

“And you? Are you hiding secrets, Ben? Oh—” She released a sound like laughter but it was not. “Why do I bother asking? I know you have secrets. Your whole life is a secret.” Where had he been for the past four days? He must have known she was waiting, as she had waited through the drenching monsoon for his return.

He gave her no answer, and she pressed her palm to his chest. Beneath wool and linen, his heart beat firm and swift like hers. It should be enough that he wanted her so much. But that alone would never be enough.

She moved several steps back.

“I am still betrothed to Marcus.”

She said it for the worst of reasons, to test his response. She should simply ask him what he intended of her now that they had been lovers. In another age she might have. But she had changed in seven years, and now part of her feared his response. Part of her wanted to see it in his eyes only, so that his words would not forever after have power over her.

He gave her what she wished. His gaze did not alter, unreadable in the candlelight, and he did not speak.

Now she must make a choice, disentangle herself from his web of silences or remain within it indefinitely. Her head argued one side of the debate, her body the other. Her heart, that obstreperous organ, clearly believed it could hover in both camps.

Dropping her gaze, she went past him and across the chamber. She paused at the door, her knuckles white around the frame, and ducked her head. “This is your reminder.”

“What reminder?” His voice sounded tight.

“You told me once to remind you to ask me for a warning. A warning when I would let you win.” She looked over her shoulder. “The next time, Ben, I think you will win.”

“I do not wish to win against you, Octavia.”

“I don’t know that you have any choice in the matter now.” She left.

Ben stared at the empty doorway. He seemed to be fated now to watch her leave him, to see her walk away without giving him what he wanted most. The flavor of her lips upon his tongue worked like whiskey in his senses, dizzying him. He needed her, had come here tonight to know the truth, and yet he would leave again less satisfied than ever. Less certain.

She was still betrothed to Crispin. Still harboring secrets. Or ammunition?

He could not believe it of her. Nothing gave evidence of that except the battering weight of betrayal swirling through him now. Honesty came through her kiss and the touch of her hands, so foreign to him. More foreign than anything else he had known, and more so now.

He bent his head and passed his palm over his eyes. On the table beside him a heavy book lay open, its pages marked with pen along the margins.

Ben recognized the marine dictionary. He’d read it as a boy, and Creighton kept a copy of Falconer’s book in the office at Blackwall. The hand in the margins was Octavia’s, the same as the single line of script she had sent him days ago, neat and clean with a playful flare to the capitals. Her notes seemed scattered, some lengthier, most impressionistic, place names and brief descriptions of sites and people, sometimes quoted phrases.

Despite all, he smiled. It did not surprise him in the least that Octavia used this book in this manner. When he first met her she had been a girl full of life and freedom. Now she was more subdued, but that spark of vivant still lit her warm eyes.

His fingers pressed back the journal clippings tucked in the crease to follow a note twining like a vine down the center of the page, then he halted. His name stared up at him.

He drew the three, yellowed scraps out, each from The Times.

The first clipping was painfully familiar. Only four days ago in his office he had read again his brother and father’s obituary, alongside the notice of his own preferment to the title. The second was a snippet of a gossip column mentioning the completed renovations of his Cavendish Square house, and musing on when he would finally make his Scottish fiancée its mistress. The third, dated more than three years later, was an article from the Board of the Admiralty listing ship owners operating out of the Port of London, followed by a catalogue of vessels, highlighting one of his own as a particularly excellent example of mercantile craftsmanship.

Ben laid the clippings on the book and worked to draw air into his lungs. She had followed news of him more than three years after he left India. Three years.

His gaze shifted to the door again, and the hot, insistent certitude that she had spoken only truth washed up and against him, then through him—despite her betrothal, despite his fears—like a monsoon wind.

He moved across the chamber into the foyer and stood paralyzed at the base of the stairs, staring at the landing above. He could go after her. But he did not know if he would be able to discern the truth if he heard it now.

His hands fisted. When he had not found Octavia at home earlier, he went to see Ashford, to ask advice of the only person who might give him good counsel concerning Styles. But Steven was still abroad and Ben hadn’t time to wait for him to return from Paris. He must confront Styles now. Then he would be free of this ache of doubt. And of obstructions.

Nearly free.

A presence stirred in the foyer behind him. He turned and met Abha’s heavy gaze.