Despite everything he’d done; the indignities, the shame, the humiliation that he’d heaped on her, how Posy still ached for Lord Thorndyke. Hungered for his touch, longed for his smile, wondered if she’d imagined his tenderness.
But Posy would not go to him. He would turn her away. Cast her out. And she would not beg for his love and find herself beholden to him. Posy might not have much in the way of material possessions – indeed, it looked certain that the house would have to be sold to pay off their creditors, to keep her and Samuel from gaol – but she had her pride.
And so he came to her instead on one storm-swollen night when the wind howled and the rain lashed against the windows. All the servants were now gone, even Little Sophie, and when Posy heard the banging on the door, she had no choice but to answer it herself though she feared it would be another bailiff.
She struggled with the heavy key then with trepidation and fear in her heart, but when she finally opened the door it was to see Thorndyke standing there. His clothes were soaked through, his inky black curls dripping, a wild desperate look in his eyes. Before she could shut the door on him, he thrust one booted foot against it.
‘No! Hear me out at least,’ he said hoarsely.
‘I’m sure, sir, there’s nothing you could say that I would wish to hear.’
‘That may be true, but I have to tell you that I love you. How I love you! I burn with it, ache with it, glory in it, and so I come to you and ask you to put me out of my misery. If you can’t love me back, when I know I’ve given you no reason, then I’ll leave this place, leave London, sequester myself at my country estate and never darken your doorstep again, though you will forever have my heart.’
Posy placed a hand on her breast where her own heart trembled. (NB: couldn’t hurt to have another tremble after so long, surely?) ‘Sir! Are you unwell?’ she asked, for she could know no other reason that he would utter such things unless he was sick of a fever.
‘Did you not hear what I said, woman? My love for you burns and scalds until I no longer know who I am. Certainly not a man worthy of your love. Could you love me just a little?’
‘I could never …’ she started to say, but it was borne out of habit rather than her heart’s truth. Could she live without this impossible man in her life? Indeed, it would be a dull, turgid existence.
He had taught her body how to sing and, without him, she would be mute once more.
‘Perhaps, sir, I could love you,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I could love you very well indeed. Perhaps, my heart is already yours to do with what you—’
No! No! No! NONONONONONONONONONO!!!!!!!
Enough! Enough of this, Posy told herself sternly as she started to delete each line, each word that she’d written.
This wasn’t real. It was nothing more than futile longing. Something she’d started writing so she’d have a safe space to take out all her frustrations on Sebastian without having to resort to causing him actual bodily harm. But somewhere along the way, it had turned in to a love story. An overblown, overwritten love story, but a love story nevertheless.
Sebastian didn’t deserve to be the object of her hormone-drenched, period costume fantasies, not when all he’d done since Lavinia had died was try to help her. OK, help her and also be very rude, but this was Sebastian and she’d written florid Regency porn about him. Hadn’t even changed his name!
And why had the story taken such an alarming turn anyway? Did she have feelings towards him? Of course she did. She’d had feelings for him for as long as she could remember. They ran the gamut of the alphabet from A for annoying right down to Z for er, zingy, which was the only way to describe the exhilarating rush Posy got when they were trading insults back and forth like a long volley in a Wimbledon finals match.
Then there had been the moment last night that had suddenly become fraught with a tension that had never been present before. There had also been handholding, a lot of handholding, and that moment when Sebastian had cupped her face and leaned towards her and Posy had thought he was going to kiss her. Her heart did a strange skippy, dippy thing as she remembered it. What would she have done if he had kissed her?
She didn’t have to think about it for too long. She’d have kissed him back and then Sebastian would have thrust her away and said something scathing because it would all have been a cruel joke. At best, he felt sorry for her, considering her to be like an annoying little sister, and at worst, she couldn’t ever begin to compete with his legions of other women. Not when her life was chaotic and messy and she had to fake being a grown-up. For all that she’d accomplished in these last few weeks, she still felt as if she were stuck, hadn’t progressed emotionally from that twenty-one-year-old who had suddenly lost her parents one summer’s night.
Why would any man, especially Sebastian, want to get involved with someone like that?
So it was time to put a stop to this. End it. Delete. Delete. Delete.
Posy opened the desk drawer where all the computery things lived and scrabbled frantically for the thumb drive. She wouldn’t be able to have a moment’s peace until she’d destroyed the evidence. But all the drives looked the same – they’d bought a job lot of them last time they’d gone to Costco – and by the time she finally found the one she was looking for and rammed it into the computer’s USB hub, Posy was sweating and yes, her hands were trembling.
There was no Ravished by the Rake on the drive but several InDesign files, containing the artwork Nina’s tattooist had done for Happy Ever After. Which didn’t mean anything because Sam had had to put the files on several different thumb drives to send to the stationery people and the tote bag people and the printers. It really didn’t mean anything. So there was no reason for Posy to suddenly feel like she’d forgotten how to breathe.
‘Bloody, bloody, bloody hell!’ Posy muttered and then she didn’t say anything as she went through every drive in the drawer.
Ravished by the Rake wasn’t on any of them, so Posy tore through the flat, opening every drawer, rifling through all the little china pots and vintage tins that contained buttons and old keys and hair slides but no thumb drive.
Posy thought she might cry. Then she thought she might throw up because there was one very obvious and plausible reason why she couldn’t find the thumb drive that contained all her sick, torrid fantasies about Sebastian.
She’d given it to the man himself.
Posy went straight to the fridge, yanked out the bottle of Pinot Grigio, poured what was left into a mug and gulped half of it down. You were meant to drink brandy when you’d had a shock but she’d never drunk brandy in her life so the Pinot Grigio would have to do.
She had another fruitless search for the thumb drive then she sat down on the stairs and wondered if she should phone Sebastian. It was Saturday – he probably hadn’t even had a chance to look at the thumb drive and she could pop over to his flat in Clerkenwell, exchange thumb drives and be on her way.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
She took her phone out of her back pocket, scrolled through her contacts until she came to Sebastian’s number and stared at it.
But what if he had opened up the thumb drive, seen the file and his curiosity had got the better of him? Sebastian was terribly curious about everything, so what would happen then?
Dear God, it didn’t bear thinking about.
Posy took another enthusiastic chug of her wine and put her head in her hands. It was a while until she became aware of a knocking sound. Someone was at the door. Maybe, hopefully, Nina who’d had a few in the Midnight Bell and needed reinforcements. Nina would know what to do.
Posy tripped down the stairs and into the shop, but the figure she could see through the glass wasn’t Nina. It wasn’t Nina at all.