Page 25 of The Widower Without a Will
She wasn’t his wife, after all.It was not her place to shield him from the cold any more than it was hers to confess affection.
“Are you—?”Awkwardly, he touched her bare calf.“Did I hurt you?”
She wondered why he would worry he had.“Quite the opposite,” she assured him, pulling herself up to sit in a position mirroring his.She had never disrobed, and so her skirts fell back over her lap as if nothing had happened.She tried to ease his tension by returning to their earlier farce.“That was a very thorough and satisfactory examination of the opposing viewpoint.”
He smiled.It was a trick of the heart that now, post-coitus, he was a hundred times handsomer than the handsome he had already been.But it was true: Martha felt she could gaze upon nothing but his smile and be happy for the rest of her life—without food, without water, without anything but him right there at the end of the sofa.
“And what do we do now?”he asked.
Confess our admiration for each other.Promise to do this again tomorrow.Admit that we haven’t felt like this in ages.Martha bit back all her honest replies.Her heart was surging with feeling, but that didn’t make any of it true.
It wasn’t as if she wanted to marry Lord Preston.Nor become his mistress, kept in an elegant house in London to always await his visit.Nor did she want him to say he loved her—for how could he, after so short an acquaintance?
She tried to laugh off the question.“To tell you the truth, sir, I have never carried off an affair like this before, so I haven’t a clue.Have you?”
She meant: Did he have an idea what they might do next?He answered a different question: “I have never done, either.I haven’t…you are the first woman I have kissed since Lolly died.The first woman I have even wanted to kiss.”
Lord Preston did not look at her as he admitted this, his eyes dropping instead to his hands, which bunched the hem of his shirt nervously.
Martha did her best to contain her astonishment.“And here I thought the upper class was incapable of celibacy.”
“Only the most elite of us,” he said, smiling again.
But the words ended there because neither of them knew what to do next.Her back aching, Martha shifted on the sofa to find a more comfortable position, resisting the urge to scoot close beside him.
Lord Preston reached out and took her hand in that courtly way of his.“This does not change your welcome here at all.You must consider yourself my guest until you have sorted out your new situation with your family.I don’t want you rushing away because I have importuned you.”
There he went again, assuming he had somehow injured her when she had explicitly asked him to take her in his arms.“You did not importune me.”To make her point, she used the name he had given her.“Preston.We both wanted this.”But she would not allow herself to become a nuisance.“Perhaps I wanted it more than you.Should I keep to myself until I hear from my niece?”
He looked her in the eyes as he shook his head.“You did not want this more than I did.”
Peace settled in her heart with those words.Martha tightened her fingers around his.“Then while I wait to hear from my niece, what do you want next?”
Gravely, as if confessing the worst sin, he admitted, “I want to do that again.Perhaps in a bed.”
“Yes.I would like that too.”She almost lost her breath from the words alone.
“Then, we may consider ourselves friends just like before.”
Just like before and nothing like it.“Friends of a deeper nature,” she agreed.
“A deeper, secret nature.”
“A deeper, secret, natural nature.”
Lord Preston smiled and kissed her fingertips.“The most natural nature there is, my dear Mrs.Bellamy.”
And while she desperately wanted to bid him call her Martha, she resisted, because they had to remain friends just like before.
Chapter Ten
Friendship,itturnedout,could be intoxicating.
By day, Martin remained Lord Preston, puzzling through decisions about who should get what investments and where his time should be spent in advocacy.He ordered repairs for the textile works and the stables.He put off the question of the cottages for another week or two.He corresponded about the slave trade bill.All of this he did with Mrs.Bellamy by his side, those intriguing reading glasses perched on her nose, their roles clearly defined as baron and secretary.
By night, he stole into Mrs.Bellamy’s boudoir and turned that friendship into something salacious.
By day, he tried his best not to imagine kissing her fingers or fantasize about pinning her atop his desk.
