The Beast's Bluestocking (The Bluestocking War), Eva Devon [e textbook reader .TXT] 📗

He winced at that. “I never said that I love you.”

“Nor did I indicate that I was speaking of you,” she replied, intrigued that he had seen himself in her statement. “But imagine being in my position where I might have to hand myself into the keeping of someone who could change their mind from day to day about how I was to be kept. I think it far wiser for me to be independent.”

“Your honesty is. . .heartening, but also heartbreaking. The lot of women is so hard,” he replied.

“It is,” she agreed, “but I find I must be brutally honest in this life. What is the point of prevaricating or maneuvering about it? Women are supposed to be wily, but I do not have time to waste.”

Though it nearly killed her to say it, she added, “Do not try to keep me, and I shall not try to keep you. We shall enjoy each other, and that is all.”

“What you are suggesting that I do. It is less than gentlemanly,” he pointed out.

“Do you care so much about being gentlemanly?” she prompted. “Is that all that you require or desire in this life, to be a gentleman? Because if you are to insist on being a gentleman, then you resign us to separation?”

He winced. “Of course not.”

“Then give us this,” she said. “Give us time together, and then we shall part when we are satiated.”

His lips turned slightly upward at her words, his eyes wide with surprise. “Satiated?” he replied.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “Give me that with you, and I shall never darken your door again.”

“Philippa,” he said, stroking a lock of hair back from her face, “you could never darken my door. It is I who darken yours.”

He pulled her to him then, his face tensing with the effort of it. “Your image kept my darkness alight for weeks, months even, and I find that I cannot bear to part with you so quickly, even though I was resolved to do so.”

“You are like a wave upon the sand,” she said, her heart heavy. “Ever rolling in and out with the tide.”

“The tide is constant,” he pointed out ruefully. “In its inconstancy.”

She groaned. “Look at how you justify your behavior.”

“You make me sound like a very devil,” he said ruefully.

“You are the very devil.”

“I am not entirely the devil,” he insisted gently.

“No,” she teased at last, “you are not. You are wounded. You have been hurt. You have known great suffering. And so you are not thinking as you should. Perhaps one day you shall think more clearly.”

“Do not wait for it,” he breathed.

“Oh, I should never make such a foolish mistake again,” she assured. She winked, thought it pained her to do so. “I shall go as soon as the tide changes, and I shall be content to do so, for I shall have known you but a little.”

“But a little,” he replied. “You have known me as no one else has done. Will it be enough for us?”

She sighed. “It shall have to be.”

Chapter 9

Despite the storm inside him—the memories of battle and the pain of loss—at this moment? Kissing Phillipa seemed to be the only thing worth doing.

He knew that he needed to send her away, but something deep within him wasn't allowing it. He couldn't send her back without her understanding how very much she had meant to him, and he needed this time with her to shore himself up against a lifetime of being alone.

He would store every moment, every memory, so that he could take it out and look at it and let it warm him when he was by himself in the future. They could share this time and enjoy it, and she would never have to succumb to looking after him, taking care of him, being his caretaker, and losing her youth and joy to him.

No, this would be a temporary joy, and that would bolster him. And he hoped it would bolster her as well. And so he took her hand and, as if the pain in his body could be entirely ignored (it could not), he led her into the hall very slowly.

He forced the pain to the back of his mind, focusing on her and her alone to get him through.

“Do you mind going at a glacial pace?” he asked in the dark hall.

“No,” she replied, “not at all, for I get to hold your hand.”

That simple statement was nearly his undoing.

A great wave of emotion crashed upon him and he had to swallow it back. And the words poured out of him. “I’ve thought of you every day since your letter first arrived accidentally in my pouch. You've gotten me through so many horrible things, and I don't ever wish to repay your beautiful heart with cruelty.”

“Cease,” she urged gently. “We shall speak no more of that. You are not going to repay me with cruelty, but with knowledge and with enjoyment and with pleasure. Are you not?”

“Yes,” he said, his heart swelling, “but you might have to put up with the fact that I am not as strong as I was.”

“Are you not?” she teased lightly, eyeing him up and down. “You look quite large.”

“I am large, but strength comes and goes,” he said dryly.

She pursed her lips. “For all that, you seem terribly capable to me, and I wonder just how much of this invalid nonsense of yours is imagined.”

“Please don't say that,” he said tightly. He took great pains to overcome the condition of his body. But his wounds were no pretense.

“Forgive me,” she replied immediately. “It was very callous of me. I cannot know the extent of your injuries and how they have affected you.”

“Thank you,” he said, surprised by her astute words. He had assumed that she would attempt to convince him that he really wasn't as wounded as he claimed, that with a little bit of effort and determination he would be able to shake it off