For a man who prided himself on discipline, it was an astonishing relief to stop pretending. She was warm and alive and startled, and then she leaned into him. The room narrowed to the press of her mouth. He felt her tremble and felt himself answer, gentling her lower lip with his.
It was not a kiss he had been expecting. But it was one that disarmed him completely.
He drew back a fraction, his thumbs still along the fine lines by her ears, his breath now wild.
“Listen to me,” he said, rougher than he intended. “I said ‘yes’ because I am an idiot. Not because you were appalling, because I am.” He swallowed, the truth sitting thick in his throat.
She looked at him, unable to understand a word of what he was saying.
“I am angry, but not at you. I am angry at myself for the way I feel when you walk into a room. I have not stopped thinking about you for a single minute, and it is an intolerable way to conduct a life that once belonged to me.”
He forced himself to go on.
“You have been haunting my every thought. That dress…” He closed his eyes, saw it again, “That dress was a catastrophe. For me. It made everything worse. I could not look directly at you for fear I would forget myself in front of half of London. I couldnot look away because you were… good God, Maria, you were radiant.” He managed a jagged breath.
“So, I have been on your mind?”
What a silly question, he thought to himself.
“All I can think about is the way it felt to hold you on a dance floor, and how I have wanted to do it again ever since.”
“Oh,” she said very softly. “Oh.”
“I have been intolerably, childishly distracted. I have been angry, and it has been entirely at myself,” he continued on, “You haunt me. I sit at my desk and you haunt me.”
Color climbed her cheeks.
“Stephen.”
He leaned in, his brow to hers, letting the nearness steady him. “I thought if I kept away for two days, the fit would pass. It did not. It worsened. I abandoned breakfast out of cowardice. I left you to loneliness because I was afraid I would not be able to leave you at all.”
“Then do not leave.”
If only it were so easy.That would make both of their lives much easier. The plea was so simple that it made him close his eyes.
“I have not earned how easily you say that,” he murmured.
“You are my husband,” she whispered back, the words as shy as they were sure. “You do not have to earn being near me.”
He kissed her again, knowing that it was not something that he ought to be doing. But he could not resist it.
Somehow, whenever she was in close proximity, he could not help himself, and all reason went flying out the window.
When he drew back, it was only far enough to look at her properly. “I cannot promise to stop thinking of you,” he said, voice still rough. “I doubt I could if I wished.”
“I do not wish it,” she returned, “I have been thinking of you as well. I have wanted you near and did not know how to ask without sounding foolish. Do not hold back from me, Stephen. We can be happy together. We can be…” She faltered, then steadied. “We can be a sweet family of our own now.”
Stephen began to pull away immediately. It was an obvious recoil, as though he could not bear the thought of what she had suggested.
As though she had crossed some line.
As if it were not his wife who was speaking to him, but rather a stranger whom he had encountered on the street.
“This,” Stephen said, “is the problem. We cannot.”
“We cannot… what?” she asked, though she feared she knew.
“We cannot have…” he stopped, “A family.”