“Does he, indeed?”
Had Adam moved closer? She thought so. She could smell his arid scent, a combination of starch and something else. Dry and clean, perhaps even lemony. Her nose had been particularly sensitive of late. Some smells made her stomach churn. Others, like his, made her mouth water.
Of course, simply looking at Adam Shaw made her mouth water. She craved him more than honey and pepper and butter. More than hot, steaming chocolate. More than anything, ever.
And she could never have him. Because she must marry Glassington, who had to be blackmailed into accepting her as his wife. The misery was killing her.
She broke away from Adam’s seductive, gold-lit gaze and began tidying her mess. “What brings you to the kitchen at this hour?” she asked simply to have something to say.
“Reports of pilfered ingredients. Monsieur Leclerc asked me to look into the matter.”
“Pilfered?”
“Missing quantities of honey. Bread. Spices.” She felt him move against her back. His hands braced on the table beside hers, surrounding her in starch and lemon. Or perhaps sage. “Chocolate, in particular.”
His breath washed over her cheek. She closed her eyes, longing to sink back into his arms. “I do enjoy it very much.”
“Mmm.” He nuzzled her ear. “Have you considered ordering a pot before the staff retires for the evening?”
“A whole pot? That would be wasteful.”
“I don’t want you running about the club at night, Phoebe. Not all men are gentlemen.”
She wetted her lips. “I was careful.”
“Not careful enough. I spotted you from the second floor corridor.”
“That is only because you are always watching.”
His lips brushed her ear, washing her with his breath, damp and hot. “Yes. I cannot seem to help myself.”
She felt the same. Everything about this was wrong.
Yet desperately right.
“Phoebe,” he whispered, his hands moving to her waist.
It was too much. Too tempting and torturous, being with him like this. She slipped away. Rounded the table and breathed until it eased enough to be bearable.
A long silence later, he spoke, his voice cooled to a fine chill. “Tell me, if I were Lord Glassington, and I put my hands upon you, would you have pulled away?”
Her eyes flew to his, the room warping as firelight flickered and faded. She braced one hand on the table and the other upon her belly. She wondered if she might be sick. Bile choked her.
“Wh-What has Glassington to do with anything?” Her voice was a frayed thread.
“You tell me. All I know is that seeing him with another woman turned you the same the color you are now. Whiter than milk.”
She could not answer. Instead, she fisted the folds over her midsection.
“Why is that, Phoebe? What is he to you?”
Inside, something was devouring her. Gnawing away the last of the girl she’d always been. Good. Obedient. Kind.
The sort of girl who mistook Glassington’s frivolity for charm and fervent declarations for solemn vows. A girl who had wanted to please the one person who had loved her without question, without compromise. The one person who’d sacrificed everything so Phoebe could find ease and comfort—Augusta.
Phoebe had deceived herself for a time, of course. She’d been flattered by Glassington’s attentions, as any young woman would be, wooed by his name and title and handsome head of hair. But the truth was she’d never wanted him. Not really. And she’d certainly never loved him. Love was what Augusta had done—letting the storm batter her to bits so that Phoebe could be safe. So that Phoebe could be warm. So that Phoebe could marry and find happiness and have children and live a life of ease.
Loving someone meant standing in stinging rain and bellowing wind, knowing how much it hurt and doing it anyway. Because the one who needed shelter mattered more.
No, she’d never felt that for Glassington. She’d let him touch her. Kiss her. She’d let him put himself inside her, even though it had hurt. Even though she hadn’t wanted him there at all. She’d done it because he’d promised marriage, and that was Augusta’s dream for her.
She’d never loved him.
But she did love her child.
And, as she stood in Monsieur Leclerc’s kitchen gazing upon the man who had cared for her, worried for her, protected her, and created a shelter for her amidst terrible storms, she knew. She loved Adam, too. Her handsome “Indian chap,” as he’d called himself. She loved him. But she could not keep him.
“Lord Glassington is nothing to me,” she said now, grateful for the table’s bracing weight. “But he is important to Augusta.”
A cynical smile curved Adam’s lips. “He is an important man. A titled man.”
“Titled,” she whispered. “Yes.”
His gaze dropped to where his hands rested on the table, as dark as the wood. The corners of his mouth flattened. Tightened. “I could care for you, you know.”
So much lay in those few words. Everything. A life together, with all its hardships and endless beauty. Dark-skinned babes and mischievous gold eyes and late-night rounds of vingt-et-un. She could see their life.
And it tore her in half, one part sewn to her own dream, the other to Augusta’s. To her child’s.
She could not answer. Please, God, she thought. I cannot answer. Because she knew what the answer would be, and she could not bear to speak it.
“Say something.”
She could not. She could not. She could not.
But she must. He deserved better than her silence.
“Y-you have cared for me quite generously already, Mr. Shaw. I am most grateful.”
As the proud man before her froze over, her heart split and bled until she wanted to wail her anguish. To beg his forgiveness.
Instead, she was forced to watch the man she loved smile a small, bitter smile and bow a shallow, mocking bow. “A pleasure to be of service, miss.”
For a long while after he left, she could not move. Then, she began to shiver. And slide. Until she sat on stone, huddled and gasping, wondering if there would be anything left of her after this storm battered her to bits.
~~*
“There ye are, Mr. Reaver,” Rude Markham set two tankards on the table, one in front of Reaver and one in front of Augusta. Ale sloshed past the brim. “Ah, don’t mind that, miss. Here. Let me take care of it for ye.” He retrieved a cloth from the waist of his apron and wiped around the tankard’s base. “See? Pretty as can be.”
They sat in the big, bald man’s tavern, The Black Bull, drinking ale because bloody nothing that morning had gone to plan. Reaver glared at the man once known as Rude Mayhem—real name, Rudolph Markham—and signaled his desire for privacy with a blunt nod toward the bar.
Rude winked and grinned. Then laughed. “Ye should have seen ’im in those days, miss. Fists like battering rams with boulders strapped to ’em. Like to break a man’s skull with one—”