Chapter Nineteen
Ben lay in bed watching for a change in the darkness of the room. Soon, it would go from pitch black to coal. Then the beginnings of grey would creep in at the edges of the curtains. Before that happened, he would need to be gone. He could not be seen leaving her room when the first servants woke to begin their duties.
It was as good a day as any to destroy a man’s reputation. But the woman involved...the women, he corrected...must remain as near to untouched by scandal as he could manage.
Amy was beginning to stir as well. They had made love once more during the night, slowly, quietly, each knowing that this might be the last time. When they slept again it was side by side. The distance between their bodies was slight, no more than an inch. But to Ben it already felt oceans wide.
He could feel her beside him, pretending that she was still asleep. But her tiny hand rested against his chest with too much weight to do it unconsciously. She was trying to bind him to her not with strength, but with the weight of her longing.
It was an interesting feeling. Women had held him in bed with tears, both of sadness and rage. He’d been seduced, threatened, begged and, on one particularly memorable occasion, restrained by ropes. But he had never felt such hesitant need. It was like a flower trying to hold on to the sun. To know that such a fragile creature depended on him for happiness made him feel strong, invincible to an almost godlike degree.
He wished it could never end.
Her head rested in the hollow of his arm. He could see her eyes were open now. There was a glitter of wetness on the lashes, as the first hint of daylight touched them. She reached up to stroke his cheek. ‘You love me, do you not?’
He could see the lines of her face now, so classically pure in form that he could barely stand to look at them. She was beautiful. Not the equal of Belle, but her superior. Why had he not noticed before, when there had been more time?
It was the eyes, he suspected. He’d been so caught up in their appearance that he’d never looked past them to the woman within. While Belle might have a sweet soul, it was childlike and untouched. But Amy had seen things and known them and been marked by them. She was ageing, like wine, and he longed to drown himself in her.
‘If you do not love me,’ she whispered, ‘then lie to save my feelings. I will not feel so foolish, then. I will tell myself it could not be helped because we were in love.’
Light or dark, perfect or ugly, she had not changed from the first day he met her. He laughed. ‘You are not supposed to suggest such things. It is unfeminine.’
‘To request that you lie, or to pretend to believe you when you do?’ she asked.
‘Either, I think,’ he said. ‘And I am finished with lying, for all the good the truth is likely to do me. I love you, Amelia Summoner.’
‘Says a man who has no heart.’ She sighed.
‘It must have grown back, but it is beating as if it might break.’ He covered her hand with his and moved it so she could feel the thumping in his chest. ‘I love you,’ he said again, enjoying the sound of the words.
‘And I love you,’ she said, nestling closer to him. ‘Why does this not make everything easy?’
‘If we were the last people on Earth, it would.’ He laid a hand on her bare hip, wishing that there were more time so that he might love her again before they had to part.
‘Go to my father and tell him you cannot marry Belle. You must—’ She stopped suddenly, as if realising that she could not be the one to demand a proposal, she could only agree to it.
He thought of the destruction it would bring to his reputation and to Belle’s should he cry off. The idea fascinated him. To be able to stand in the ruins of his old life and start again. ‘If I left her, would you be there, waiting for me?’
‘I could not love a man who hurt her,’ she said without hesitation.
‘So, your answer is no.’ He felt another part of him break. ‘You do not have to worry. There will be nothing left of me to marry. If I break the engagement, your father swears he’ll ruin me.’
The sweet woman in his arms let loose with a most unladylike curse.
He laughed, in spite of himself. ‘He wanted to protect your sister. He was afraid, once I knew about her, I would abandon her.’ The oath to Summoner was a growing weight in his gut, crushing the air from his body and ruining the moment. But, at least, now he understood the need for it.
Swear that you will never hurt my daughter.
Amy could fend for herself, but Belle needed protection.
‘If either of you had listened to me in the first place...’
‘You were right, all along,’ he agreed.
‘It would be better to be happy than right,’ she said.