Page 81 of Rescued from Betrayal
“No, just you.”
“Ha!” Al’s eyes danced with enjoyment.
Why these two found pleasure in pecking at one another was beyond Nathaniel, but he decided to take their advice and rose from his seat.
“I shall let you two argue your own merits in peace. It seems I need to see to my wife.”
“Good man,” Al said, rising and clapping him on the back. “I wish you luck. Remember, patience is key.”
Javenia’s face screwed up as if she’d tasted something sour and he knew she’d have plenty to say about Al’s lack of patience, but Nathaniel left before the two could engage in their merry verbal dance. Melior was hurting and he did not know why. He only hoped she’d be willing to open up and let him into her world.
Chapter 26
Guilt was a heavy feeling to carry. Melior slouched in the chair near the fire in the bedroom she shared with Nathaniel. She’d meant little to Lord Caraway and she’d almost trapped him into a marriage. Why had she assumed that he wanted a union in the first place?
In her ignorance, she’d assumed any man of consequence would desire her. She was Melior the superior. A sigh burst from her lips. The anger she’d harbored against her mother subsided into a disgust of all the nonsense with which she’d filled her head. She was no better than the next woman. But like every other woman, she wished to be loved and cherished, to know that she was wanted and not a burden on those around her.
However, that knowledge had come too late. If anyone knew how she’d come to be in that cloakroom, how she’d trusted her mother’s scheme of getting Lord Caraway alone even if she’d not meant to follow the plan exactly, they’d despise her. Nathaniel would despise her.
She stood and crossed to the bedside table. Reaching into her book box, she extracted her spectacles and the charcoal picture John had drawn. The adoration in Nathaniel’s face warmed her, but it would certainly turn to derision if he knew it was her fault that they’d been forced together. It pained her to think of the scorn he would heap upon her head. They had come so far, built so much in such a short time, but it would all be lost.
“Are you all right?” Nathaniel said from the door.
Melior quickly shoved the picture back into the box, but in her haste she knocked her spectacles off and they clattered across the floor. She froze.
Nathaniel stooped and picked them up, inspecting the cracked lenses. He peered at her, then back down at the wireframes, a small smile pulling at his lips.
She swallowed hard.
He crossed to where she stood and peered down into the box. Though the paper covered her current read considerably, the book was still evident.
“And all this time I thought it a jewelry case." He reached in and pulled out the novel. “I did not think a voracious reader as you could give up books so easily.”
“I do not… that is… they are not…” Melior ran her sweating hands along her skirt.
“Why do you hide it?”
She tried to play innocent, casually crossing back to her seat by the fire. “Hide what?”
“Melior, one thing this last month has afforded me is a clear insight into which person I am addressing.”
“I do not follow.”
“Right now I am speaking with Miss Kendall, London socialite. I can see it in the set of your shoulders and the tilt of your chin. But I wish to speak with Melior, my wife, a woman who, it seems, still loves to read as much as she ever did, but for somereason chooses to hide it.” He kneeled down beside her chair and peered up at her. “You can trust me.”
Her hands began to tremble. “Mother said no gentleman would want a woman who knew more than he did. Men want women with fine looks who can advance their position in society, and who can bear them an heir or two.”
“And you believe all that drivel?”
Did she? All of her mother’s other teachings had proved to be quite false, why would this one be true? She reached out and gently pulled the spectacles out of Nathaniel’s grasp. “I suppose not. When Aunt Lucinda gifted me these, my mother forbade me from ever wearing them in public. She was embarrassed that her nearly perfect daughter had such a plain imperfection as bad eyesight.”
“It cannot be all that terrible. Many people use spectacles. Take John, for example—he could not create such beautiful art if he did not use lenses. Besides, your vision cannot be much of a disadvantage. In all the time I have known you, you have moved around unaided and without distress.”
She smiled. “My vision is only blurry when the object is within a few feet of my face. Mother believes I ruined my eyes with all my late-night reading.”
He rose up on one knee and leaned closer to her. “Does my face become blurry when I am this close?”
She swallowed hard but nodded.
