Before meeting Emily he had not been aware of how much he longed for children. Maybe he hadn’t longed for them before he’d come to know her. He couldn’t be sure now. It didn’t matter. He now wanted children with her. He wanted marriage with her.
He couldn’t have either.
Seeing Aimee again had only increased his longing for a normal married life, for spending all his evenings at home with children and dogs at his feet and embracing the whole mundane affair that was daily life.
He could never have those things.
Only Emily would do. And he couldn’t have her.
****
After dressing, Emily had sat on the bed and watched Alex as he moved about his chamber and put on his clothes. A curl of unease twisted through her. It was odd that he had arisen without a word. He had helped her lace her gown in silence as well. Now he paused in the act of tying his cravat and was staring at her with the most grave expression.
She sat up straighter. “Alex?”
He came back to the bed and sat beside her. He looked pale. Almost sick.
He took her hand. “I hope you won’t hate me too much after today.”
“What do you mean?”
“I shouldn’t have taken advantage of your sympathy like this.”
“You didn’t take advantage of anything. We shared ourselves.”
“It cannot happen ever again. Never.”
“But everything had changed. We were back to being together.”
He shook his head. “Nothing has changed.”
The intensity of her feelings compelled her to speak. “We can start over, Alex. I can give you other children—”
“Emily—”
“Let me speak, please.”
“I do not want your pity.”
“It is not pity!” How many times must she say it before he would believe her?
He stared back at her with a patient expression. “Call it a self-sacrifice then. I do not wish for anyone to sacrifice themselves on my account. Not such a short time ago, you said you wished only to work on your new book.”
“I could be a wife and mother and work on the book too.”
“You’ll never be happy, splitting your energies like that.”
“Not such a short time ago, you were content to have an artist as a wife. You didn’t consider it a self-sacrifice on my part then.”
“I know you better now.”
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Putting these meaningless words between us. Yes, we had a disagreement.”
“We had an epiphany that saved us from a disastrous marriage which would have made you unhappy.”
“You forbade me to use my art to draw attention to the abomination of slavery. Seeing such willingness on your part to dictate that I abandon my artistic pursuits scared me. So yes, I said horrible things to you. I admit that.”
His expression turned to stone. “You were justified in what you said.”
“Whether I was justified or not, the slavery book doesn’t matter now.”
“It matters to you.”
“But you hate the very idea of it. You said you do not want the issue of abolition in your life.”
“That’s true. And I don’t want you involved with such an issue. It could be dangerous for you. It could make you a target of those who are opposed to the abolition of slavery. It is something that mere sympathy cannot change. Much blood will be shed before something so profitable will be dissolved.”
“I think you are being very pessimistic about your fellow gentlemen.”
“So you told me before. But my feelings on the matter have not changed. And I’d do anything I could to dissuade you from that course of action. I certainly cannot encourage you to it.”
“You have no right to try to dissuade me from my life’s purpose. I… I feel so twisted up inside when you tell me this…” Her voice drifted off because she was at a loss as to how to respond to him.
“You think I could love you and not want to protect you from a wrong course of action?”
“I can’t believe you could love me and yet still seek to dictate to me or attempt to prevent me from living my life as I feel I must.”
“That’s part of the reason why our marriage would never work.”
“It isn’t what is important right now. Let’s pretend that the issue of my art, and my vision for how to use it, doesn’t exist for the moment. Before that disagreement, you loved me and I loved you. Neither of us accused the other of pity or self-sacrifice.”
“That was before I told you all of my past.”
“What difference does that make?”
“You will never see me in the same light again. You will never feel softly towards me again without that emotion being tainted by pity. And from that pity, only resentment can grow.”
“No, you have it all wrong… very, very wrong. I understand you better now. I have more trust in you.” She caught her breath and chewed her lip a moment. “I see everything so much more clearly. I see what is and is not important in my life.”
He gave her a wry half smile. “And what have you decided is the most important thing in your life?”
“You are.”
He shook his head. “It is exactly as I said. This is pity. If you take some time, your thoughts will clear.”
“Not just you… you, me, us. Our life together. Our children.”
“It is no good, Emily. Nothing can ever be the same again between us. Not with my past between us.”
“If you don’t want to marry me, then I will understand.” She leaned close to him and touched his face. “I’ll be your lover, your mistress.”
He took hold of her wrists and pulled her hands away from him.
“How could you imagine that I would have so little regard for you as to offer you—the person I love more than I have loved anyone else in this world—a lesser position than that of my wife?”
“I made a mistake. I overreacted when you tried to forbid me to write that book. I should have waited and tried harder to make you see reason. Everything was all right between us before that. Why can’t we go back to that place, that time? Why can’t you forgive me?”
“It is not anything you have done. It is about me and my past.”
She stared into his tormented eyes and couldn’t help but wonder if his shame was preventing him resuming their engagement. How did one help the person they loved the most in the world to overcome such an impediment?
She took a deep breath and tried to phrase things just the right way. “Knowing your past has only made me feel closer to you. I understand you better. It has made me love you more. How many times must I say that before you will believe me?”
“It is your sympathy talking. Your compassion. Your pity. You will regret the things you say today.”
“What do I have to do? I will give up the book on slavery. I’ll never do another work like that again. Is that what you want to hear?”
He shook his head. “I am trying to tell you something and you will not hear me. I do not want any personal sacrifices from you.”
“It is no longer so much a question of sacrifice. I may as well give the work up. No printer will discuss the matter with me.”
“Good God, listen to you.” He stared at her as though horrified. “This is what my love did to you. You would never, ever give up hope for your vision before.”
“The past weeks have forced me to take a very hard, long look at what I really and truly want from life. I’d rather be with you and make a life—a family of our own—than anything else in the world. Anything.”
“Well, that’s quite a sea change for you. I remember the girl who—”
“Yes, that girl. I was still so much a child, I didn’t know what life or love really was. I didn’t know what I wanted. I was foolish, naïve, senselessly stubborn.”
“That stubbornness is one of the things I have admired most about you—grudgingly at times, I admit. Would I destroy that which I love the most?
What kind of man would that make me?”
“We must learn to compromise. We cannot allow our differences to destroy what we are together, our joint happiness is the most vital thing. Everything else must take its place behind that.”
“Emily, when you get a little older, you’ll see that life is all about seduction. We get seduced into betraying parts of ourselves. It happened to me and that was hard enough to face. Now I am watching it happen to you. I have seduced you into loving me. Into pitying me enough to think you love me, perhaps?”
“No, not perhaps. I know my own heart.”
He laughed softly, cynically. “No, no, you are letting yourself be seduced by your own compassionate nature. Seduced into giving up your own cherished dreams. I love you too much to allow it.”
“You’ll not allow it?”
“I’ll not allow the sacrifice of such a brilliant star as yourself on my miserable account.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Do you imagine you are still living out one of those Bible stories from your childhood? Living out your mother’s fantasy of what her son should be?”
“Don’t do that. Don’t bring her into this. It is uncharitable to be so disrespectful to the dead and unworthy of you.”
“She’s the one coming between us. What she expected of you was inhuman. Her little man—her little hero.” She couldn’t keep the sense of contempt from her voice. Margaret Dalton had needed a heroic fantasy to believe in. What use was some knight in shining armor, so perfect he couldn’t allow himself to feel or to indulge in carnal pleasures or to show his clay feet? Emily needed a flesh and blood man, someone to warm her at nights. And the only one who would do was this man, flawed as he was. His flaws made him all.
“Emily, I asked you to leave her out of our discussion.”
“You must let go of the mold she tried to cast you in. No one is that perfect, that noble.”
“Every man should have something to strive for.”
“You tell me in one breath that you love me, above everything and everyone else in your life, and then in the next breath you say we can never be married now. Why can’t we marry? Because I feel ‘pity’ for something terrible that happened in your past. What woman wouldn’t feel compassion for the man she loves? You’re being unreasonable and emotionally illogical.”
He frowned. “‘Emotionally illogical’ is not a valid term. Emotions have no logic.”
“Then don’t be logical about something like this. In matters of love, we should follow only our hearts.”
“I am sorry, my love. It hurts us both now but it will be better for you in the long term. You’ll see. You were not made for marriage. You have your art and your vision of what you want to do with that art. Allow no one to distract you from that ever again.” His expression grew so somber that it tore at her heart. “You were never meant for marriage to any man. It took me a while to see this. It is only natural that a man would seek to protect you. That he would want to be put foremost in your life and for you to bear his children. But you were meant to be free of either demand.”
Horror washed over her at hearing her own words distorted and handed back to her. She shook her head. “No, no, I don’t want a life like that! I don’t want to be alone.”
“Shh-shh,” He kissed the top of her head. “You’re tired now. However, you can’t stay here. Why don’t you go and rest in the blue room? I’ll have Elisha drive you home later.”
“You’re just sending me out of your life like this? Having your man drive me away?”
“We shall always be friends to each other, don’t you agree?”
“I don’t want to be just y-your friend!”
“I think that you were correct the other day.” He continued as though she had not spoken. “We should have some time apart but after that—”
She couldn’t bear to hear another word. She turned ran to the door, tore it open and slammed it behind her. Her thoughts swirled wildly. She just wanted to leave. Now. She’d walk back to Mrs. Hazelwood’s house.
Mrs. Hazelwood’s house!
He’d made it impossible for her to stay there. The woman kept staring at her out of the corner of her eye. She knew that Emily and Alex had been lovers. She thought that Alex had grown bored and cast Emily aside. How humiliating! Emily couldn’t possibly stay there.
She’d have to find other work. New lodgings. So many things to do!
She ran to the stairs and looked down into the vestibule, focusing on the shiny floor, trying to collect herself.
Zachariah came walking into view, his ever-present book in his hand.
He had been here in the house this entire time. She’d completely forgotten about him earlier. She had lost all her awareness for any and everything but Alex.
Zachariah would have heard their impassioned, uncontrolled lovemaking. She simply couldn’t face the stern-faced, enigmatic man now. She cried out and turned and began running down the corridor, back to the blue room. What was she to do with herself?!
“Miss Emily.”
At the softly spoken call, she stopped. Slowly she turned to face him. Trapped here in Alex’s grand house.
Zachariah must have taken the stairs three at time. The thought bemused her, a single moment of clarity in her mental storm. He held his hands out to her. The look on his face was pure sympathy. It tugged at her.
She gave a soft cry.
He nodded and motioned to himself with his hands.
She didn’t know where else to go, what to do with herself. She ran to him.
He enclosed his arms about her so gently, as though she were made from spun glass and he daren’t break her. “I told you he was in no fit mood for company, least of all yours.”
His tone was so tender, so understanding. “But you never listen to anyone, do you? You just always have to keep knocking your head against that wall until you hurt yourself. Isn’t that so?”
His voice resounded with fondness. Zachariah didn’t approve of her. Barely tolerated her and that only because as a servant, he must. But now he had taken terrible risks to be a comfort to her. It confused her.
She was drained of all energy and could no longer hold back. She burst into tears.
Dazed from the release of emotion, she came to herself whilst he was dabbing his handkerchief at her face.
“I am going to take you back to Cornelia Hazelwood’s house now. Don’t come here again. Wait until he gives you some sign that his mind and heart are set to rights.”
“What if his mind and heart are never set to rights?”
“Then I hope you’ll face that with a little more dignity than you’ve shown today.” He took several more dabs at her cheeks. “Make him stand tall and do right for you.”
“Oh God… what a fool I have been.”
“It is our little secret, eh, Miss?” He tipped her chin. “Yes?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Go comb your hair, splash some cold water on your face. I will ready the carriage and take you home.”
****
“I wish you hadn’t done it.” Nicolo’s voice rang with resentment.
“Done what?” Alex asked absently. He’d come to pay a visit to his friend.
“Saved me.”
“God save me, I cannot bear your self pity.”
“I mean it Alex, you don’t know what it cost me. How likely am I to ever draw up the courage to attempt it again?”
That brought Alex to his feet. He couldn’t spend another moment here without saying something he’d regret. Nicolo couldn’t be blamed for what he was. That Dutch devil had turned him. He’d been young and impressionable when he’d been captured and exposed to the devil’s ways.
Why do you make excuses for him when you won’t excuse yourself?
He could just hear Emily saying those exact words. What would he answer her? That Nicolo couldn’t be expected to have stood up to the devil because he was not a Dalton? Because he hadn’t been schooled in the twin fires of Alex’s father’s stern
all work and no play ethic and his mother’s fervent Congregationalism?
So was that what this boiled down to? Family pride?
If it was, how odd that was, for he felt so disconnected from his family, from his father… even from his beloved mother. The sensual crimes he had committed had created a gulf between himself and his lineage. Between himself and the expectations that had been held for him. That distance could never be bridged.
“I could never live up to you, Alex. Do you have any idea how that feels?”
Nicolo’s words startled him out of his thoughts. The echo of desperation touched him, melting his resentment. Sympathy for his old friend, empathy for his old comrade, alongside whom he’d once battled against a madman, rose in his breast. His eyebrows snapped together and he sat again, this time remaining on the edge of his seat. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“I hated him every bit as much as you did. I wanted him dead so badly my stomach used to ache with it. I plotted and planned and prayed. But I was such a coward. I couldn’t make that move. Then you did. And you didn’t even plan or try to protect yourself; you just walked in there and did the deed.”
“I failed her. And when she took her life, I was filled with rage. I acted out of rage, like a madman.”
“I saw your face, the satisfaction you took. You are a hunter, a killer, a leader among men. I am nothing. I could never have done that. I’d have been caught, vomiting my guts out at all that blood, at the savageness of it.”
Alex’s heart began pounding against his rib cage. He was back there, his hands coated with warm, sticky blood. He saw the Dutch devil with a gaping wound at his throat gushing blood.
He remembered again the savage joy pulsing through his whole body.
There remained a type of shame in that. Yes, even now.
A sigh brought him back to himself and he looked to his old friend, feeling empty inside. Numb. Frozen.
He’d forgotten this feeling. In the warmth of Emily’s love, he’d been warm and filled to bursting inside with passion. But now he was dead inside once more, only now it ached so damned badly. Ached because he knew, now, what the absence of the emptiness had been like.
It had been like heaven.
Wild, Wicked and Wanton: A Hot Historical Romance Bundle Page 111