Unclaimed (Turner, #2)

“I’m never premature,” he told her. “I’m always precisely on time.” He pulled his greatcoat from his shoulders and set it on a hook.

She’d once dreamed of a little country cottage, of a life spent in solitude with only Amalie to keep her company. Perhaps…perhaps she’d been afraid to wish for anything else. Hope was painful, after all. But now, she couldn’t beat it back, couldn’t shove it away. She could almost make herself believe in a future that contained Mark. And not only Mark—a family.

Because when she’d seen the headline across the square, her thoughts had flown for the first time to her sisters. Surely, married to Sir Mark, she might see them again? Perhaps, with the news of her death, they’d have to meet in secret. But she wouldn’t have to be dead to them entirely, would she?

She squelched those thoughts viciously. Best not to want; that way, she’d feel no disappointment. Hope hurt.

So, she imagined, did that dark bruise on his face.

“Come here,” she said severely, taking his hand and leading him to a chair that she’d set near a basin. He sat, looking at her in bemusement. Jessica concentrated on the task before her. She steeped a cloth in the cool water of the basin and then laid it on his face.

“Ah,” he said. “That feels good.”

She’d scented the water with herbs. They released their sweet aroma into the air. It made the atmosphere take on the aspect of a dream—as if this were some wooded glen, taken from her imagination and not a room in dirty London. Her hands moved to his shoulders, and she rubbed them.

“Did Weston scream?” she asked. “Did he grovel?”

“Indeed.”

“How gratifying.”

He snorted under the damp cloth. “It was, actually. I wish you could have been there.”

“Oh, the account in the paper was lovely.” She sighed again. “I wish…I wish…”

“What do you want?”

Her hands were cool and moist from the compress. His fingers reached up and intertwined themselves with hers, warm and dry.

“It’s lovely what you did, Mark.” She shook her head. “I…I never thought he’d pay for what he’d done.”

But. She left the word unspoken. But it didn’t make it any better. Mark couldn’t make the man give back what he’d stolen—not with any number of beatings. She still felt sick when she thought of Weston, like some creature cowering in the underbrush. It hadn’t made her feel any better. It had just made Weston feel worse.

A cause for celebration, to be sure. Still…

“Dearest,” Mark said, taking the cloth from his eye. “You will marry me, won’t you?”

She could choke on the hope he made her feel. Her hands shook. “I— Even if Weston stays silent and hidden, someone might recognize me. And the paper—it says you’re likely to be appointed Commissioner of the Poor Laws, with Weston in disgrace. You’ll constantly find yourself in the public’s eye. Perhaps even more than you are now, hard as that is to believe. Someone will speak out about me. We would be disgraced.”

“You haven’t met my elder brother.” Mark smiled. “The Duke of Parford. He’ll make sure nothing goes wrong.”

“Even a duke can’t stop gossip.”

“Stop worrying.” He said the words lightly, but she could see the tic in his cheek, the tension in his hand as it balled lightly into a fist.

“And you’re going to be Commissioner now. You didn’t even want to be Commissioner.”

“Well.” He didn’t deny this. “But I did want you.”

Jessica had suffered the waning of a man’s interest often enough to know the course of want. At first, a man was willing to give up almost anything. But soon enough, want settled into familiarity. Soon, those little deprivations would start to sting and then fester.

She could barely accept Mark’s regard. She couldn’t manage his resentment.

She held out her hand to him. There was no hope to be had, not in this. There was only tonight.

“Will you come to my bed?” she asked. It wasn’t an answer to his question. It was, instead, a different sort of offer. He looked at her hand. Slowly, he raised his own to touch her fingertips. His fingers curled about hers again, so warm, so confident.

“Yes,” Mark said, his voice low and throaty. “Yes, I will.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

WHEN J ESSICA AWOKE, Mark was asleep beside her. In the pale light of morning, he looked innocent. Young. She was almost afraid to touch him, lest she break the spell that had brought a man like this to her.