Beatrice shook her head, suddenly feeling quite foolish for ever leaving her room in the first place.
Algernon continued to look at her intensely for another long moment.
I should say something. Anything!
“I wanted to discuss our lessons,” she blurted out.
Algernon’s brows rose in surprise.
“At two in the morning?” he asked.
Beatrice blushed. She had no idea it was that late already.
“I… well… yes…” she stammered out and fisted her hands at her hips. She gave a stiff nod.
“Yes, I do.”
Algernon stared at her for another long moment, then sighed, the muscles of his chest expanding as he did so. He drew his hands away from her shoulders and brought one up to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Very well then,” he grumbled then stepped back from the doorway. “Come in. There is no reason to have this conversation in the hall.”
On trembling legs, Beatrice followed him inside, and she was at once wrapped in his heady, masculine scent as he shut the door. The room was warm and dark, but Algernon took her hand and led her to a chair, helping her sit. Then he moved away from her, and for a moment, she felt utterly small and alone in the darkness. Such a feeling faded quickly when barely a minute later a soft, yellow light bloomed, and she saw the outline of Algernon’s muscular back as he kneeled at the fireplace. Soon, the small flame ebbed into a crackling fire, and light illuminated the darkened space.
It was a sitting room of sorts, she realized. The walls were dark blue, accented with black fleur de lis patterns. The chair she sat on and the other furniture in the room were black velvet. His jacket, shirt, and waistcoat lay discarded over the back of the couch placed opposite of her, and there was a half-drank glass of some sort of brown liquor sitting atop a dark wood table between the couch and her chair.
“You were sleeping here?” she asked, slowly bringing her gaze from her surroundings back to Algernon.
Algernon’s face was stoic as ever as he sat down on the couch opposite of her, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands absently rubbing together.
“My sleeping quarters are just through there,” his deep voice rumbled, nodding to a door she had not noticed before. “It is a large space. Sometimes the emptiness of it makes me uncomfortable, so I sleep out here.”
Beatrice only nodded. Algernon had always appeared comfortable in his apparent solitude, but now, she wondered if she had been mistaken.
“You wished to speak of our lessons,” Algernon said, reminding of her of her purpose. “What about them?”
She gathered her courage with a deep breath.
“Tomorrow, you wish to change the subject of our lessons. However, I do not believe our previous ones are quite finished.”
Algernon went utterly still in front of her—in fact she was sure that he had even ceased breath.
“Beatrice,” he rumbled her name, this sound of it sending shivers of pleasure down her spine, “I do not think?—”
“You gave me books to read,” she pressed on, not wanting to hear what he was about to say next. “You had me study them greatly. I confess I was appalled by their nature at first, but now that I have read them all, I am curious. I have questions, and I want answers before…”
She drew in a breath, feeling her heart clench strangely at what she was about to say.
“Before I am to wed Henry.”
The expression on Algernon’s face was one of a man being tortured, and he shook his head as his gaze fell to the floor.
“Sometimes men like to teach their wives certain lessons in pleasure,” he answered, his rasping tone sounding as tortured as the expression on his face looked. “I do not believe it is my place to teach you everything,” he went, rubbing his hands together.
“You do not have to teach me everything.”
The words flew out of Beatrice’s mouth before she could even think about them. He was telling her no. She knew that. Yet despite such understanding, she found herself pressing him. Her body had grown too warm, too itchy for his touch. She shifted in the chair uncomfortably, the dampness between her legs growing as she watched his powerful hands continue to rub together.
“Henry…” he rasped, shaking his head again.