Page 43 of Better Love Next Time
“I hit a branch while running.”
His exercise as prescribed by the Greeks, who believed fitness a civic duty. And how attractive the duty which formed his body was to women. To her.
Walking on, she was blind to the world passing her by.
If she was not going to end it, which she had decided to put off further consideration until her birthday, she should be reconciling herself to a future alone and deciding where this home Julian was to purchase her would be. At minimum, she should be on her knees praying for forgiveness for acting the wanton and taking him with her hand, as recommended by Anthony Philips.
There had been no love between them like they had shared in their youth. No tenderness of feeling. She had recognized the hollowness of it as soon as he had spilled on her hand. Julian had succumbed to her advances, but had it brought them closer? Did he feel anything more for her than he had in the hours before? She had debased herself, trying to be the woman he wanted. One of loose morals, the sort who invited a handsome stranger to her room and joined in lustful congress. And the worst part was she had imagined it just that way. As if he were a stranger and she a whore. And she had liked it.
Men did not love whores. They used them.
Kitty went rigid when she saw that they had arrived at the shipyard. She could not bear to see the place after what had happened here two days before. “Why are we here?”
He ignored her question, and when she tripped on her shoe, he pulled her upright, unlocked the door, and escorted her up the loft stairs. He opened the office door and motioned her inside where the chairs, table, and desk had been dusted clean. After removing her cloak, he settled her in the leather chairbehind the desk and left the room. He returned with a decanter of liquor and two glasses sorely in need of scrubbing. He polished them on his coat.
“I thought it best we be alone, far from the eavesdropping of polite society,” he said, pouring two fingers in each glass.
What conversation required libations at ten in the morning?
His expression uneasy, he raised his glass. “To revenge.”
She gawked in surprise.
“Drink, Katherine.”
“Why would I drink to revenge?”
“Are we arguing already? And where in hell are you going?” he demanded as she started to rise. “Sit down and listen.”
She eased back in the chair and swallowed half the liquor, coughing as it burned a path to her stomach. He topped off her drink and considered her at length.
“It was revenge that I sought,” he said. “I have been angry with you for five, very long years. I have not shouted at you nor raised my hand nor called you names. But I have been, am still, furious.” He toasted. “To anger.”
The glass shook in her hands as she raised it to her lips.
“My silence has been cruel,” he continued. “Withholding my intentions to sell this property and allowing you to think otherwise was indeed punishment of the cowardly kind. At times, I do think I hate you. To hatred.”
“I cannot drink to hatred.”
“Drink.”
She sipped.
“In the future I will endeavor to communicate my anger to you when it arises. As you recall, I come from a noble line of hotheads, so you may anticipate shouting on a level which will pay tribute to my ancestors. I will never raise a hand to you.”
He swung a leg to cross the opposite thigh. “And so comes my offer to you. If you can withstand my temper, my honesty, if youcan build St. Clair Shipwrights into something promising—not successful, per se—only promising, by my next birthday, then I shall give you the business. To offers.”
“You would do this for me?”
“Drink.”
“T-To offers.” She sipped several times.
“Now come my conditions. No laudanum.”
“None.”
He frowned. “Our marriage will remain in name only. You will cease your martyrdom. You will not fix me with your heavy silences nor your pitiful expressions designed to elicit guilt.”
