Unclaimed (Turner, #2)

He might as well have punched her in the stomach. Weston’s letter, crumpled in her hand, burned. She needed to hurt him. How was she to do that, when he made her want to weep?

“That’s lust talking, not discernment.” Her words were sharp. “You’re supposed to have written a practical guide to chastity. Be practical now. My integrity is not odd—it is nonexistent. You can’t like me.”

“Would it be better if I pawed over your body, rather than feel an ounce of honest affection?”

“Yes,” she spat out. “Yes. It would be a great deal easier.”

“Come, Jessica. One mistake doesn’t damn you to unhappiness forever.” His eyes softened. “And I know that you must be upset about your friend.” One mistake. One mistake. Oh, that she could count her mistakes. Instead, they filled her to the brim with choking bitterness.

“Don’t make a romance of me, Sir Mark.”

“No?” He shook his head, mystified. “What do you want, then?”

She stared at his lapels, as if all the answers she sought might be contained in the brown wool. He waited.

Finally, she lifted her chin and looked him in the eye. “I want to feel alive again.” She kept her voice calm as the sea between tides—but, oh, the undercurrent pulling at her. “I want never to have to tell a lie again.” She stopped at that and shook her head. “Sir Mark. Mark. Please don’t make me have to do this.”

She had made mistakes, yes. But he was right. Even while she’d lived in the utmost sin, she’d tried to hold on to the last vestiges of her integrity. She’d sold some of her morals to survive. This was the first time she’d sacrifice her honesty. If Mark succumbed, she’d lose everything.

He couldn’t understand what she was begging him to do, and she had just enough sense of self-preservation not to tell him. Still, she wanted him to hate her, to resist the threat she posed.

“You know,” he said softly, “it’s not a romance I want to make of you.”

“What do you want?”

His gaze slipped down her form. She could feel where he’d touched her last night. More, she could feel where he hadn’t—the untouched skin of her belly, the nakedness of her inner thighs. But he didn’t move. “For now?” His tone was nonchalant, so at odds with the heat of his gaze. “For now, I’ll be satisfied if you call me Mark. And I wanted to ask if you’d…if you’d heard about the address I agreed to give tonight. I’m talking to the MCB.”

“About chastity.”

He nodded. “These days, I think I should deserve a medal for my restraint.” He shook his head. “Come. Let me see you home afterward. I thought…I thought you might want the company.”

She’d warned him. She’d told him to take himself away. If he insisted on throwing himself, mothlike, into her flame, who was she to tell him no? It must have been her fate to ruin him, her destiny to lead him astray as surely as Guinevere had ever seduced Sir Lancelot.

“Yes,” Jessica said softly. “I’ll be there.” The words sounded like blasphemy on her lips.

THAT EVENING, Mark noted, the church was filled well before the appointed time. There was nothing quite like the hum of whispers before one addressed a crowd. Before he started to speak, he could imagine anything happening. Riots could break out. Or, more likely, he might put everyone to sleep.

The rector had ceded the church this evening for the use of the MCB, the town hall being insufficient for the size of the crowd. The pews had filled up. It seemed as if everyone in the parish—in fact, everyone in every neighboring parish—had found their way here to attend the lecture that Tolliver had arranged, even on so short a notice.

Jessica sat near the front. They were beginning to accept her now. He liked that. No longer ostracized, she was seated next to Mrs. Metcalf. But Mark still could not help but noticing that the nearest man to her was three feet away. The nearest man, that was, excepting Mr. Lewis, who sat next to her. Jessica looked straight ahead, her face blank, as the rector spoke to her. He couldn’t hear a word, but he seemed to be lecturing her. Jessica was accepted but not trusted. It made him ache inside. He wanted her to have more than that.

The very front rows were taken up by young, male faces—eager, eyes shining, intent on hearing Mark’s words. They sported the blue armbands that designated them members of the MCB. The armbands, he’d once been told, were for indoor use, when hats—and their cockades—were not allowed. James Tolliver stood to Mark’s immediate right, and as the crowd finally found their places, he motioned for silence. It took very little time.

“Our guest tonight needs no introduction,”

Tolliver began. “We are all familiar with the great, the magnificent, the inestimable Sir Mark.”