“Marry me,” he said again, softly. Her eyes were bloodshot, and now a cloudy gray. She looked away.
“You mean a marriage blanc, I suppose?” she said, her voice a little hoarse. “Separate lives, separate beds?”
“Oh, no,” he said, and took hold of both her hands. “I definitely want to bed you. Repeatedly. What sort of marriage do you call that?”
“Well, bigamy, for a start.” She was looking at him in a different way, though, and the blood was thrumming in his chest.
“We can discuss the details on the way back to Savannah.” Still holding her hands tightly in his, he leaned down and kissed her. Her mouth moved under his, more in shock than response—but response it was.
“I did not say I’d do it!” she said, jerking back. He let her go, noting with a distant satisfaction that she hadn’t wiped her mouth in disgust.
“You can give me your answer when we get to Savannah,” he said, and, getting to his feet, he offered her his hand.
135
Just to Make Things Interesting
IN A SMALL TOWN to the south of Philadelphia, he’d hired them rooms in a decent inn and was pleased to find a small looking glass on the wall above his washbasin. He’d shaved carefully—Amaranthus had been first shocked and then amused by the discovery that his sprouting beard was a vivid dark red—and then dressed in his captain’s uniform, somewhat creased from being rolled up in his portmanteau, but clean.
She blinked when he got into the coach beside her and placed his hat on his knee.
“I thought you’d resigned your commission.”
“I did. I have. This is what you might call a ruse de guerre,” he said, gesturing at his scarlet coat. “Uncle Hal’s idea. He gave me a temporary captain’s commission, with orders for travel that would let me pass through any territory controlled by the King’s troops—which Richmond and Charles Town most assuredly are. I wasn’t joking,” he added gently. “He was worried about you and he does want you back.”
She glanced away, out the window, and bit her lip.
“I should have thought an earl would be shown a certain amount of courtesy, even without a uniform.”
“I’m not an earl, either,” he said firmly, and her head swiveled sharply round. She stared at him.
“I should have said, before,” he said. “If you were considering being a countess as part of the perquisites of marrying me, I’m afraid that’s off.”
“I wasn’t,” she said, and her mouth twitched slightly. She turned back to the window, through which the muddy streets of Richmond were giving way to equally rain-soaked cornfields.
“How did you manage it?” she said, not turning round. “I thought Father Pardloe told you a peer couldn’t stop being a peer without the permission of the King. Did you persuade the King?”
“I haven’t spoken to His Majesty yet,” William said politely. “But I shall. Still, it doesn’t matter what he says; I’ve made up my mind, and I’m not the Earl of Ellesmere anymore—if I ever was.”
That did make her turn around.
He felt a sudden rush of … something. Maybe fear but mostly excitement, as though he were just about to jump from a high cliff into the sea, not knowing if the water was deep enough and not caring.
“I’m a bastard,” he said. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it, and he felt sure it wouldn’t be the last, but he took a deep breath before going on. “I mean—I’m not legally a bastard, because the eighth earl and my mother were married when I was born. But the old earl wasn’t my father.”
She looked him slowly up and down, pausing at his face, her gaze traveling down and up again.
“Well, whoever he was, he must have been a, um … very striking gentleman. Is that where—” She pawed vaguely at her chin, still staring at him.
“Yes,” he said, not quite between his teeth. “And not ‘was’—he’s still alive.”
“You’ve met him?” She’d turned entirely to face him, her eyes alive with interest. He had the sudden illusion that he could feel the touch of her eyes on his face, tickling his skin.
“I have. He—knows me. And that I know about him.”
She didn’t say anything for a bit, but he could see her turning this revelation over in her mind. She still wore black but had taken to wearing a fichu of dark blue with it, rather than white; it made her eyes brilliant and warmed her skin. Plainly she knew it, and he hid a smile. She saw it, nonetheless, and leaned back, pursing her lips.