Page 17 of Better Love Next Time
Stop feeling guilty, Julian thought.You don’t love her. She knows this.
A beautiful courtesan had offered her services. Right this moment he could be plowing the finest cunny the French had to offer. Instead, he had escorted the woman home.Home.
He had best figure out how to deal with his guilt. He had been celibate for two years. Because of a bloody vow.
Kitty’s stockinged feet whispered across the carpet. His body wound tighter the closer she came.
“Julian?” She knelt before him. “I know what we must do.”
He scoured a hand down his face. With a semblance of calm, he leaned into the chair back. “Do you?”
“Yes. We must return to Southampton. We will build ships together. I will ask nothing more of you except to be my partner. I will mind the money, and you will manage all else. We,you, will realize your dreams. We will find our purpose there.”
God, her face. The huge hazel eyes ringed in black, the slanted brows, heart-shaped chin, her nose with the slight, delicate, irresistible upturn.
He looked away. To the French gown he had purchased her of silver and blue with the ivory half-moons of her breasts snug against the gemmed bodice. Jewels blanketed her slim form, the rich blue petticoat sparkling like a clear night sky. Her vivid blue-stockinged feet peeked out from her silver-trimmed skirt.
None of it was more arresting than her face.
“And I”—she swallowed, her eyes growing even rounder—“I will allow you your freedom. You are free to seek your needs with other women. I will tie you down no more to your vow. What we have, what we can do, is enough.”
“It will not be enough for you.”
“Yes. Yes, it will.”
“You lie to yourself.”
“No, I… that is… perhaps I do not love you in the same way as I did. You have changed, and so likely have I.”
Julian stared at her slim fingers clutched at her middle like she was praying. He allowed that she spoke the truth. Her love had changed into a maudlin, desperate thing. She had worked at gaiety during their time in Paris. In Vienna, amidst the glittering ballrooms, she had grown melancholy. In Rome, she had become sullen. In Venice, where romance and lust filled the air, he could hardly stand to look at her.
“And you,” he said, “will you be free to seek other men?”
She nodded without hesitation.
Irritation pricked at his shoulders. Not that he was jealous. No, he would never barge into her room searching for a lover as she had done. He was irritated because she made it sound so simple.
She locked her gaze with his, like she believed every word she spoke. Like the Kitty he had fallen in love with. His wife believed it so easy to pick up lost dreams where they had fallen. He was tempted to agree with her, to teach her a lesson that dreams died and resurrecting them was futile.
“If we return to England,” he said, “you pledge to release me from my vow of fidelity? To not speak of it when I do?”
She held up her hand, a feverish solemnity in her eyes. “I pledge.”
“You will stand by meekly as I bed other women.” She winced. He shot to standing, bringing her with him, clasping her arms. “Is that the way of it, Katherine?”
“With one condition,” she said.
“Of course. Do you have a lover in mind already? Let me guess, Anthony?”
“Anthony is hardly a friend,” she said.
“And hardly friends make ready lovers.”
She went rigid in his hold. “I wouldn’t know.”
He crooked a finger under the highest strand of her pearls circling her slim throat and pulled her to his chest. He felt her softness mold against him. “You suffer, I know. And you see me as the source of it. How do you bear it?”
She pushed off of him. Her long fingers made a fist at her stomacher as she turned her back to him. “I will not be known as your wife. I will be Madame Féline, your partner. A widow of a French master shipwright.”
