"No, Matt. Please. We agreed to leave this discussion until after you're better."
"I've decided I can't wait for then. I want you to know now. I want to kiss you now. I want to have you now."
I blinked at him.
He smiled and brushed the hair off my forehead. The sweet gesture almost undid me. I felt the sob rise in my throat and swallowed it down.
"But I'll wait for that," he said. "The kissing, however…"
I put a hand to his chest. "There will be no kissing. There will be no more suggestion of anything between us, including marriage."
He sighed. "Until after I am better, yes, I know and agree."
"No, Matt." I pushed myself up and strode to the door, away from him. "Enough pretending. The conversation tonight has only driven home to me how much you and I cannot be together."
He rose too, slowly, and regarded me levelly. "Because I'm the Rycroft heir? That's the reason for your rejection of me? Come now, India, you know that means nothing to me. I don't care if you're a kitchen maid. I've fallen in love with you."
My heart lurched painfully in my chest. I pressed a hand to my stomach and concentrated on what I had to say and not the curious look in his eyes and the vein throbbing in his throat. It was not time to give in to my desires, but time to be a sensible adult and lay out the reasons why I couldn't marry him.
"I don't want a life where the people I see every day consider me unworthy," I said.
"They won't."
"Hear me out. I finally feel as though I'm standing on my own two feet, out of the shadow of my father, and even of you. And I like it. I like being in control of my life, knowing my future is an open book, waiting for me to write the words. Me, Matt, not a father or husband, or even sons." A lump rose in my throat at that. I wasn't just giving up Matt but any future children I may have had with him. "Marrying you will see that all disappear. Not because you want it to be that way, but just because it will. That's the way of the world. I will be your wife, not me anymore. Not my own person."
"That's not true. Many married women make their own mark on the world. I'm not going to imprison you. I don't want you to not be yourself. Marrying me won't be the end of your freedom, India. It'll simply mark the beginning of a new phase."
I blinked back the tears threatening to well. He was right; I knew he would never smother me if we married. Yet I forged on. I didn't really know why, when every argument I threw at him was as thin as paper and my resolve crumbled with every word.
"Your own family will treat me as inferior," I went on. "They'll think I am marrying you for your money and title. It will drive a wedge between us, and I'll lose Miss Glass's friendship."
His face softened. He took a few steps toward me and skimmed his thumb down my cheek. "Aunt Letitia will come around. She likes you more than she likes her friends. If they want to make an issue of it then she'll refuse to see them. As to Uncle Richard and Aunt Beatrice, I simply don't care what they think, and I doubt Aunt Letitia does either."
My breaths came in short, sharp bursts and my skin felt hot, tight. I shouldn't allow him to seduce me with words. Shouldn't want him to seduce me. Yet his deep, rumbling voice wrapped around me, and I couldn't get free.
"They'll be determined for you to marry Patience if Lord Cox breaks the engagement," I said, feeling sick at the thought of him marrying anyone but me.
"Don't worry about that. I'll think of something, if it comes to pass."
A bubble of nervous laughter escaped. "You have an answer for everything."
"Almost." He searched my eyes then his gaze fell to my mouth. "Almost." He kissed me lightly on the lips then suddenly pulled away.
I grasped the back of a chair for balance and blinked at him. He stood by the door, a wicked smile on his lips and heat in his gaze.
"I told you I'd wait to have you," he said, thickly. "So you'd better go."
I slipped past him and hurried up to my room, not entirely sure if I'd accepted his proposal of marriage—or if he'd even offered one. I wasn't entirely sure of anything anymore, except that we needed to fix his watch soon and resolve what lay between us, one way or another—whichever way that may be.
Chapter 7
Abigail Pilcher and her supervisor weren't keen for her to take a short break when Matt and I showed up at the workroom of Peter Robinson’s Oxford Street shop. Matt had to slip the supervisor some money and use all his charm on Abigail before she agreed.
We left the workroom and its dozen seamstresses bent over their noisy sewing machines, making our way out through the shop and into the street. The day had already begun to warm, and the dense early morning traffic had thinned to the usual mid-morning bustle.
"You're the American what asked about me yesterday," Abigail said, a wary eye on Matt.
"That was my friend. I'm Matthew Glass, and this is Miss Steele, my…friend."
My face heated, despite the innocuous description. Matt and I had not spoken of the previous evening's conversation. There was simply nothing more to say. But it made the walk to Oxford Street a little awkward.
"What do you want?" Abigail asked. She was a sturdy woman, like me, although her girth was wider and her cheeks as round and rosy as apples. The rosiness began to fade the longer we remained out of the stuffy workroom. Despite the ravages of a difficult life imprinted on her face, she wasn't old. She must have been quite young when she left the convent.
"I want to buy you and Miss Steele gelati." Matt indicated the brightly painted cart where a man with a heavy Italian accent was trying to drum up business to little avail.
"I can't be gone too long," Abigail said, glancing back at the shop as a customer left, a parcel under her arm.
"Then you'll have to eat your ice cream quickly." Matt spoke to the seller in a language I assumed was Italian. The seller beamed and the two of them fell into a genial conversation as the seller filled two glasses with the confection stored in the iced depths of his cart.
Matt returned and handed a glass and spoon to each of us. Abigail accepted hers with an even warier gaze. I didn't blame her for her caution; I knew how odd it felt to have a gentleman suddenly pay you a lot of attention.
"We have some questions for you about your time at the Convent of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart," Matt said.
Abigail stopped licking her spoon and stared wide-eyed at Matt. She removed the spoon slowly from her mouth. "How do you know I was there?"
"Sister Margaret told us. She says you were friends."
Abigail's shoulders relaxed and a wistful smile touched her lips. "She remembers me?"
"She not only remembers you but she misses you," I said. "She was sorry you left."
"I never told her why." Abigail toyed with her ice cream. "I couldn't."
"We know why," I said gently. "We know all about Antony."