There were areas of London as desperate as the slums of Bombay. Where people died like flies, and thieves and prostitutes lived cheek by jowl, and no police dared to venture alone. Mina and her sisters didn’t live there.
They were on the other side of the street.
Mildmay Park was a bit tumbledown, but it wasn’t Bethnal Green. On her first day back in London, four months ago now, Mina knew she had to get Mary and Sebastian out of there. And that had meant using a little of Seth’s precious money.
They must be frugal, but there were limits to what women and a four-year-old child should bear.
“You’re not eating your supper, Mina,” Emma said.
The slice of eel pie was no more appetizing now than five minutes ago when it had been hot. Emma tried to cook appetizing meals for their little family with their small budget, but her talents were not for the kitchen.
“Sorry, I was a world away.” Mina picked up her fork and forced down a bite.
Mary said nothing, as usual, but ate every last bite on her plate—just as she required Sebastian to do, along with his milk and vegetables. After the fright of his illness and their uncertain living, Mary approached every meal with a sort of humble reverence.
Or, in light of Emma’s cooking, with humble submission.
Mina cleared her throat, the sound loud in the room. Their suppers were already conducted in monastic silence. To not disturb a sleeping Sebastian was a convenient excuse. But in truth, there was often nothing to say that would not lower them further.
Emma’s voice broke the silence. “You mustn’t force yourself to finish if the pie does not appeal.”
“No… I… Thank you, Emma.” Mina tucked into her plate and finished before her sister could pluck her plate away in a fit of pique.
She carried the plates to the sink and cleaned up quietly in the dark, the small candle on the table guttering. Thank goodness the sun was not setting so quickly now that spring had come, but the lamps would still need to be lit this evening, as they had sewing to do.
If they economized, and continued to get their needlework as they had this past month, they would be fine. But she had to find steady employment soon. She was not skilled enough for dressmaking but this slopwork she was given—this week, for workingmen’s shirts—was too sporadic for her comfort.
Everything was so costly. Sebastian’s doctors, especially. They could not allow the damp and chill to find him again. That desperation had sent Mary into the streets before. They mustn’t allow that to happen again. But if Sebastian were sick or hungry, who could stop her?
Mina shook her mind free of that nightmare. Their situation was not that dire. Together, they would survive. If they stayed together. And if there were some unforeseen emergency, as there already had been…well, there was Seth’s money.
Shame heated her. They would return his money and pay him back the eleven pounds they’d borrowed. In time. How they would manage to, she didn’t know yet. But in time, they would.
They had pinched off just enough of his funds to survive, to eat, to stay warm, to shelter Sebastian. And as soon as they could…as soon as he returned—
Where are you, Seth?
She had no time for such ponderings. She snuffed the candle. But as she did every night, she let the memories of his grin, his warm arms, and his low, rumbling voice light her within. There was no dousing her memories.
Even if they were not to be together, what harm was there in remembering? Life in Mildmay Park was bleak enough. She could allow herself that little comfort.
Mary was already at her sewing, so Mina turned up the lamp and threaded her own needle. Emma joined her with pen and paper.
“Who are you writing to?” she asked.
Emma paused with her pen poised over the paper. Her chin lifted a fraction. “A Mister Ingram. He is an attorney who champions the cases of indigent women who have been ill used or abandoned.”
“You are not exactly indigent—”
“My means are limited, and he is acquainted with law-persons and charges. Perhaps he could assign a solicitor or even an apprentice to…”
She had expected Emma’s temper to ignite, but her sister’s voice faded with doubt.
“Emma,” Mina started gently, “Mr. Rivers’s behavior was inexcusable, but your claim will not incite any great interest. Not when the restitution would be so paltry a sum.”
Emma didn’t lift her head. “I can’t forgive him, Mina. I don’t know why.”
No, she had not forgiven. Her anger had only grown in the four months since she’d last seen Colin Rivers. “You’re tired, Emma. Why don’t you save that letter for tomorrow?”
To her surprise, Emma capped her ink. “Mr. Mayhew would not think hiring a solicitor a squandering of money.” She held up a hand to silence her protest. “I know—we will return every single farthing. But I daresay this is not how he envisioned us living.”
Mina said nothing. They’d had this argument enough.
Just once, she would appreciate support from Mary’s corner. The lamplight cast a golden glow on Mary’s placid countenance, but that was illusion. Mary was still pale, and was so devoid of spirit and speech, she seemed to have no opinion on any matter.
“We are living fine, Emma,” Mary said.
Ow. Mina’s needle sank into the pad of her finger at her surprise in hearing Mary’s voice.
Mary didn’t look up from her work. “Mr. Mayhew may have envisioned different surroundings, but I will be the first to fall to my knees and thank him for saving me from the workhouse. That was the living I envisioned for me and Sebastian before his generosity spared us.”
Emma blinked furiously and put away her paper.
“There is little enough charity in the world, Emma.” Mary’s voice was flat. “No one will help you. The sooner you surrender your campaign of revenge, the better.”
“It’s not revenge,” Emma said. “It’s justice.”
Mary said nothing, just applied herself to her needle as if she’d never spoken at all.
What would justice mean to Mary? Was there justice in a world for a woman who lost her husband before their child was born? Who could work and work, and still not feed and house her son?
“Mr. Mayhew would want me to bring him to justice.” Emma sliced a strand of the thread with her knife and tested the seam of the piece she worked on. “Wait and see when he calls on us.” She smiled at her. “He is sure to come any day and sweep Mina away—”
“Don’t, Emma,” she said.
Emma’s smile fell. “He will, Mina.”
Mary’s hands stopped in their work. “I think I hear Sebastian.” She set aside her sewing and walked into the bedroom.
Mina waited for the door to close before looking at Emma. “You’ve upset Mary.”
“What did I say?”
Guilt and frustration flooded her. “I left Mary before, Emma. I will not leave her again.”
“If you wed—”
“Mary cannot earn enough to survive on her own.”
Emma bit her lip. A habit of hers when she was thinking. “But Mr. Mayhew loves you. I know he wants to marry you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Perhaps he will want to take on the care of Mary and Sebastian. And once he comes—”
“He is already here.”
Emma gaped, silenced at last.
Mina bent over her sewing. “He is already in England. The letter we left for him poste restante, the letter with our direction, was claimed a week ago.”
“A week? That must be wrong. He would have come to see you.” Emma’s stare grew heavy. “He would come to see you. Mina?”
Tears stung her eyes, so she kept her head down. “I don’t know.”
Emma asked no more questions, and Mina was thankful. She had no answers to give. She was desperate to see Seth, to know that he was all right, to return his money. But nothing between them had changed. She had refused him in Bombay because she was afraid.
And in London, she was even more afraid.
* * *
The children didn’t run here. Seth peered down an alley, shadowed even at ten in the morning. Two hollow-eyed waifs stared back at him.
This couldn’t be right. He checked the direction again. The nearest building with a number was two doors down. This would be the building.
But this wasn’t at all a home for Mina.
“Are you lost, handsome?” A woman’s hand gripped his forearm, the clawlike fingers red and raw. “Lord, you’re a strong ’un.”
The woman’s hair was an unnatural black, and she smelled sickly sweet, like something verging on rot. But her eyes were the same silvery blue as the butterflies in Brazil. They must have been fine once.
He pasted on a smile. “I’m not lost, but I thank you.”
Her lips twisted with what might’ve been scorn. “Are you lonely, then?”
Christ, London might’ve been Bombay. Might be worse.
Quelling his revulsion, he patted her hand, before reaching into his pocket. He only had a few tuppence to spare. “Why don’t you go on and have something to eat?” He pressed the coins into her hand.
Lifeless eyes watched him a moment longer before she shuffled off.
Christ, Minnie, don’t be here…please. He knocked on the flimsy door, the three soft raps a more ordered rhythm than his heart at the moment.
Mina and Emma must have been in London…six weeks? Seven? Their journey had been faster than his. Their passage on the new, fast HMS Liverpool had cost him dear, but he hadn’t cared.
He’d taken a slower route, and on the overland portion, they’d lost a few days, as little Aimee needed a rest from the sea. Just as Georgie had predicted.
And in the end, he’d only been hurrying to discover all his hopes crushed—no, crushed wasn’t accurate. Wilted. Withered. Rotted.
He wouldn’t dwell on it now; he couldn’t. There was only so much feeling a man could take at a time, and Mina was what mattered now.
He knocked again, instantly softening the force after the first rap. Too damn loud, though he’d not meant it to be. Mina would be startled enough by the sight of him. He’d lost half a stone on the voyage and Georgie had shorn his hair above his ears.
Was no one here? He pressed his ear to the door. Nothing. Faces peeked from windows and alleys. Would one of them know Mina?
Steps sounded from behind him and he turned.
“Mr. Mayhew?” Emma’s eyes were huge with surprise, but her smile grew. Behind her, a woman with a young boy at her side.
And Mina.
It was Mina that burned away the gray walls and slick cobblestones and peering eyes. His Mina, looking like his angel, looking beautiful…and thin and tired.
“Hello, Minnie.”
She stared with surprise, crushing the package she held to her chest, and he couldn’t get to her fast enough. That perfect blush rose on her cheeks and her eyes glowed, and a smile he’d not felt on his lips for months stretched across his face. “There’s a sight a man could get used to.”
He wrapped his arms around her.
And he was home.
All the tension he’d carried for months melted from his body. The tension on that boat, and on the caravan across the desert from Suez, and sitting across the desk from his cultivators yesterday, hearing the bad news.
Damn, he might release the waterworks if he didn’t brace himself. Her hair was soft under his nose, but he hugged lean muscle and bone. She’d lost weight, as he had. They’d both diminished being apart. “I wasn’t expecting to find you here, pretty.”
She hugged him tight and whispered, “You’re here. You’re really here and you came.” She pushed him back to look at him. “Are you well?”
“I’m always well.” He cupped her face. “May not be soon if you don’t stop crying.” God, he’d missed looking into those eyes. They warmed him like no fire could have. “I found them, Minnie. I found Georgie and Aimee alive.”
Her eyes widened and she covered her lips with a shaking hand.
“They’re alive and here in London with me.”
“Alive,” she whispered, and he braced her against him before she dropped to the filthy street. “Thank God. Emma, Mary—Georgiana’s alive. And the baby.”
Those tears weren’t stopping at all, and he hugged her hard.
“How, Seth? I thought—”
“Me too, pretty.”
She smiled and squared her slim shoulders, wiping her cheeks dry and smoothing her blouse with trembling hands. His little officer again. “Come inside. You must tell us everything.”
The ladies bustled him indoors and his body tightened at the first sight of the room. Plank floors. A cold hearth. Chairs without cushions. There wasn’t anything here of comfort. “Minnie, why—”
“Don’t.” She wiped her eyes. “We’re fine. We’re just frugal. We’re warm and we eat every day and Sebastian is well.”
She pulled him down to sit beside her on the sofa. Emma and the other woman with the child—Mary?—sat across from them on those naked, wood chairs. He nodded at them, but he had a hundred questions. “All right, then. Who’s Sebastian?”
“This is my sister Mary and her son, Sebastian,” Mina said. “My nephew…he needed a great deal, actually. A place to live and medicine, and there were debts to pay.”
Mary sprang to her feet, with her boy in her arms, and bent to hug Seth, startling Sebastian into clutching his mother’s neck. “Mr. Mayhew, thank you. I thank God for you every day. You don’t know what you did. Your money kept my son alive. I owe you everything—” Her voice cracked. “Everything and I’ll never be able to repay you or thank you.” She sobbed and buried her face into his shoulder.
“That’s…” He patted Mary on the shoulder. The poor lady was quaking. “That’s all right, Mary. I’m real glad of that. I’d do anything for Minnie’s family. Sebastian looks like a fine boy.” From what he could see of him, with the lad crushed between him and his mum.
Mina and Emma joined in on the hugging. A huddle of women. And they weren’t letting him go.
Well.
His heart cracked in his chest. Wasn’t a thing more he could do for them. And from how they were living, it seemed he’d not done enough to begin with.
“Minnie.” He shifted to look at her. He remembered everything just right. Those lips were still the most kissable he’d ever known, and the milky skin and peach blush exactly as he remembered every night in his conjuring of her. He needed to be alone with her, needed to tell her—
Hell, he needed to tell her he’d failed. Tell her he couldn’t take care of her.
Tell her Tom was coming to do that for him.
She searched his face and the smile on her face made him think she’d remembered him just the same, too. Yes, a man would go a long way to find a woman like her. But fourteen sails hadn’t brought him any closer to having a wife, and now he knew with a certainty what was true.
He wasn’t ever going to have one.
“Come, Emma.” Mary lifted her head from his shoulder and wiped her eyes. “Let’s leave Mina and Mr. Mayhew alone to talk.”
Emma was slower to release him. “All right. But I want to hear of Georgiana, too.”
“I’m certain we’ll hear all of it later.”
“Where will you go?” Mina asked.
“To Mrs. Bradford’s. She will like the company,” Mary said. “And we’ll return in a half hour—no, an hour.” She busied herself with Sebastian’s coat. “An hour is the usual amount of time she likes us to visit. Emma, wrap a few biscuits.”
Seth considered all the bustle that was occurring. Mina’s deepening blush. The way Emma didn’t seem to know where to walk. Mary thrusting Sebastian’s arms into his coat. The way Emma protested that the biscuits weren’t edible, and Mary snapping that it hardly mattered.
And that they were leaving for an hour.
Seth heated with embarrassment. What were the women thinking he and Mina might do? He looked anywhere but at what must be the bedroom door. But damned if his roger wasn’t taking an interest in the reunion now.
But he couldn’t be with Mina. Not ever again.
In moments, the women had bundled up Sebastian’s things, pulled shawls around their shoulders, and were out the door. Mina latched the door and pulled him to his feet.
“Minnie, are you all right? I’d given you enough to—”
“You did. You saved us. We’re fine. I’ve missed you.” She pulled his head down to her mouth and he let her.
Her lips were as soft and sweet as he remembered. And there was no way to resist crushing her against him and deepening their kiss. Deep as all the love he’d hold inside him. Hold and never let out.
He should tell her…tell her Tom was coming…
Slender fingers combed through his hair and tightened. And damned if he didn’t feel those little tugs good and low, right where he was desperate to join their bodies again. His sweet Minnie. She loved him better than any woman ever could.
Like she knew what he was thinking, her lush mouth smiled under his kiss and he tore his mouth away before it was too late.
And her eyes were shining, but her lashes were dark and spiked with tears. “I was so afraid I’d never see you again. You claimed your letter days ago.”
He nodded through his grief, waiting for the air to fill his lungs. “I did, pretty. I needed—I wanted to see about something before coming. Something I’d been planning on for a long time.”
Mina searched his eyes. “Before seeing me?”
He moved his eyes off her so he could say what needed saying. “I need to tell you something, and it will be a surprise, but I’m hoping you’ll be agreeable because I think it the best thing for you. You’ll be away from here and taken care of—”
I wanted to marry you. I hoped I could, thought I could.
I was wrong.
He clamped down on all the thoughts vying for dominance in his brain. Hell. He closed his eyes, and sorted them. One at a time. Most important first. “You can’t stay here, Minnie.”
She blinked. Those long, wet lashes almost fascinating the rest of the words from his head. Almost.
“This isn’t a place for you and your sisters and Sebastian. Why aren’t you using the money I gave you?”
“We did. We used eleven pounds.”
“Eleven—that’s not enough. You should’ve found some decent rooms. A place that doesn’t smell from the sewers and without whores outside the door. And with a fire burning and lamps and a window box with flowers. And you shouldn’t be so damn thin!”
Mina’s eyes went wide with hurt—and he wanted to smash his damn head into the wall for saying all the beef-headed things he always said.
And she didn’t say a word. But then…Mina wouldn’t.
He scrubbed a hand through his hair and said with more calm, “I didn’t… Minnie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”
Mina took hold of his arm and he forced himself to look at her. She held her chin up, but the hurt was still faint in her eyes. But she wouldn’t cry or rage at him. He knew she wouldn’t. There wasn’t a woman alive who’d tolerate his blunders better.
He was grateful and humiliated by that at the same time.
“Mary says a prayer for you every night, and so does Sebastian. You’re like Father Christmas to him.”
He frowned and shook his head.
“When Emma and I returned, Sebastian was ill and Mary was desperate. She sold her clothes; she starved. She almost…almost went to the street again. You mustn’t tell her I told you.”
“I never would, pretty.”
“She didn’t know what else to do.”
Hell. It was clear to him what Mary would have done. In London, men might not have the means to keep a wife, but one marital comfort was found too damn easy with the Magdalenes in the streets.
“The money you gave us erased her debt, paid for Sebastian’s doctor, fed us, kept us safe,” she said quietly. “You did that for us. If you wanted us to do more, I’m sorry. This was all we could imagine doing, because this was so much more than we had before.”
Only when Mina stopped talking was he able to unclench his fists and breathe. She couldn’t imagine another way of living? Couldn’t imagine living someplace clean and where the sun could find her and with a garden where she could grow things?
“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath. She wouldn’t be imagining that life if she were married to him, either.
“Seth? What’s wrong?”
“I couldn’t come see you the day I returned. I wanted to. But I had to know something first, and it took time.” He sat on the sofa, not wanting to look at her. “I told you I was collecting ornamentals in Brazil, on top of hunting medicinals for East India.”
“I remember.”
“All those seeds I collected…I packed them the best ways I knew how, all different kinds of ways. I left them with cultivators. Good men who knew the best way to bring those seeds to life.” He pushed to his feet, but there wasn’t room to pace. “Some survived, they tell me.”
Mina took his hand in both her little ones. He steeled himself from taking her right back into his arms.
“How many survived?” she asked.
“Ten,” he mumbled. “Ten species out of eighty. That was two years of work. Longer even, counting the sail back and the months they planted and waited. All I got was a hundred pounds for the trouble.”
Mina went still, and he pulled his hand from hers.
She let him.
“A hundred pounds isn’t enough for fixing up my cottage and buildings, and starting a flock of sheep.” He took a deep breath. “It’s not enough for a family.” He looked at her. “It’s not enough, Minnie”—to be safe for you. To marry you.
It cost him, but he held her eye. His little officer wouldn’t shy from a problem that needed sorting.
But she couldn’t sort this problem.
He turned from her. “Seems it’s always the same. All the hard searching, all the prizes for East India, and never…enough left.”
“You have the money you gave me,” she said. “All except the eleven pounds—”
He spun from her. “You’re keeping that money.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Minnie—”
“I won’t keep it. You need it and you have to—”
With a growl of frustration, he yanked her against him and kissed her. Kissed her to quiet her, to beg her to stop. He couldn’t take any more of Mina’s plain speaking.
She’d say what he couldn’t bear to hear. That he couldn’t afford to keep her or her family safe. Couldn’t afford to wed her. That he wasn’t a man who could. Tom would be that man.
His heart pounding in his chest, he lifted his mouth off hers. “Tomorrow, Minnie,” he said gruffly. “Tomorrow you can try arguing with me over that money, but not today.”
She looked steadily back at him, mutiny written plain all over her sweet face, but he could out-stubborn her any day. She might be as orderly as an officer, but he’d never been all that good at taking orders.
She was clenching her teeth, and damned if he didn’t have to grin at how that angry, little face…didn’t work at all. Her bottom lip pouted, and when he thought her mouth couldn’t be any more kissable, she had to go and prove him wrong.
But his heart was tearing in two at the same time. Ah…Minnie.
“There’s one last thing I have to tell you.” He dragged in a breath because the words seemed to take all the air out of him. Tell her Tom is coming. Just tell her and finish it.
“Seth?”
He forced himself to look at her and her little mouth working to relax the pout from her lips.
“Before you tell me”—she rose on her toes, trying to meet him eye to eye—“could we just be grateful?”
He closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet scent of Mina’s hair, her skin. Grateful. He smiled, remembering. “Are you asking me to shut my mouth, pretty?”
“I’m asking you to kiss me.”
Her words might have been a bludgeon to his aching heart and, dizzy, he tightened his hold on her. Christ, she wasn’t supposed to say that. “Minnie.” He squeezed his eyes tight. Tom was coming. “I have to tell you—”
“Tell me tomorrow,” she whispered. “I’m grateful today.”
He opened his eyes and looked at Mina. The woman he loved—would always love. And the woman he didn’t deserve. It was a sin. But he’d take one more day for himself.
He nodded. “Tomorrow.” He rested his forehead on hers. “We have a little under an hour now. I should have been keeping count.”
Mina smiled and pulled him into the bedroom. The one bedroom—and the one bed.
“Do you all sleep in here?” he asked.
“It’s all right.”
One bed. And the quilt was white with little posies on them. “Minnie?” He pointed at the bed, not sure what he was protesting, but she didn’t look, as she was busy untucking his shirt.
“Hmm?” Her hands were under his shirt and were stroking his chest. He pressed her a little closer, leaning into how good that felt, how healing. Warm, soft lips nibbled his neck, his cheek, his mouth. Blood surged to his roger, and he was ready for her. More than ready.
Her round breasts pressed softly against his chest, plumping into the most erotic sight he’d ever seen. Those eyes, that lush mouth, that bosom…all for him. She was beautiful and desirable, and she was offering herself to him.
Mina pushed and he backed into the bed, the mattress behind his knees with that quilt of sweet posies. She yanked at his trousers and he feared for his buttons. He guided her arms around his neck so he could free himself for her.
But he didn’t want to love her on a bed where the little boy slept. Or anyone else, for that matter. “You don’t sleep alone, do you, Minnie?”
Her eyes were soft and melting, and her tongue slicked her lips wet—and suddenly there wasn’t any need to sort out the matter.
He didn’t need a bed at all.
Turning, he leaned against the door and coaxed her to lean against him. She was such a little thing, and he was glad. With one hand under her lush bottom, he lifted her off the ground. Shoving his trousers down past his hips he drew up her skirts and positioned her right where he needed her.
“Seth.”
His name was a puff of heated breath on his mouth and, with an animal grunt, he squeezed her backside before he could stop himself. A soft layer of cotton separated him from the wet heat of her body.
Wet and ready for him. He pulled the seams of her drawers apart and guided her onto his roger where he stood. And he let the weight of her body sink onto him—and sheath him. She gasped and he nearly came without a stroke.
“Ah, God, Minnie.” His roger pulsed in rhythm to her clenching body. “The nights I dreamed of you, taking myself in hand, dreaming I was with you. In your sweet body.”
“I know. I missed you so.” She rocked against him, straining for purchase without her feet on the ground for leverage. The silk of her inner thighs rubbing against his hips as she climbed him, rode him.
And he needed more. Needed to be deeper in her, needed all of her body against his.
Caging her, he turned them around, his hugging arms shielding her from the cold wall. Mina gave him what he wanted. Hugging him tight around the neck, her breasts cushioned him, and he nuzzled the heat of her neck, the silky skin of that delicate column. She whimpered, her nails dragging across his back as she sank onto him. And that was enough to calm the frenzy of their reunion.
Leaning heavily against her, his arms braced on the wall, he thrust into her. The pleasure so good, so complete, he never wanted this to end. Their eyes latched, hers warm and liquid, like he’d dreamed all those nights on the return back to her.
Those perfect lips parted, glistened, and a spasm of answering pleasure rippled in his loins.
“Seth,” she breathed. Smiling dreamily, she dropped her legs from around his waist, driving her deeper onto him.
God…so sweet. “Kiss me,” he groaned.
She claimed his mouth, sucking his tongue deep, and he couldn’t move. She’d never done that before…
Only when she softened her kiss did he feel the desperate need to thrust in her, to bring her to pleasure. He pumped steadily, wanting this to be good for her. Even in this bleak, little room, even without any future for them, he would make this moment one she could be right with, one she wouldn’t be ashamed of.
A moment she wouldn’t regret. A moment she’d know was one of love.
“Minnie,” he whispered. “I love you, Minnie.”
And that was enough. She cried out with her completion and he clenched against following her, removing himself from her just in time.
Mina was pinned between his big body and the wall while he brought his breathing under control. He’d let her go in a moment. Just not yet…not yet.
Her smile grazed his cheek. “Thank you, Seth.”
Something sharp lanced his heart, and he held still, waiting for his heartbeat to slow. But it wasn’t slowing.
She rested her head on his shoulder. “I’d forgotten how good you feel.”
“I hadn’t forgotten, pretty. I’m thinking I never will.”
He let her down on her feet. The room changed, darkened, chilled. He’d never be here again.
He took a step back, giving her space, denying himself her touch. Her skirts rustled into place, and her blouse and hair were neat and orderly, like his little officer would require. Only the deep flush of her cheeks and the swelling of her lips lingered.
And he was so…grateful for that small proof of their loving that he couldn’t find any words to tell her what she would always mean to him, how much he wanted her and how he would miss her.
And what had to happen despite it all.
Trying not to feel anything more, he righted his clothes. In the silence, Mina searched his face. “Seth?” She took a step closer and he had to brace himself into standing still. She smoothed his hair off his brow and he stiffened a little. Seemed his hair wasn’t too short for her to do that.
Such a little hand…and she didn’t know how much her touch hurt him.
“I can’t… I wish I could arrange words like Shakespeare knew how, Minnie. So I could tell you how beautiful you are. How there’s nothing in the world I’d count as lovelier, and I’ve seen skies like opals and orchids only God could color. And it’s not just your beauty. It’s the wonder. I feel wonder when I’m with you. Like I wasn’t really living until I saw you.” He huffed an embarrassed laugh. “But I’m the last man to know how to put pretty words together. I’m sorry about that.”
He was hot under his skin, frustrated, but Mina was looking at him with a look he’d never seen before. And it made him hold very still.
The bottom lip of her smile shook a little, and her eyes were shiny. “Remember how you told Georgiana that if you draw true, pretty works itself out?”
He nodded.
“I think…when you speak true, pretty works itself out, too.”
Seth took a shaky breath. It was wonder he felt. She was a lady in everything she said and did, to never rob him of his pride. But what did she really see when she looked at him? She said she loved him, but she was smart enough to say no when he’d asked her to marry him. He’d just hoped this time…
He’d hoped, and there hadn’t been a good enough plan behind his hope.
He’d thought there was this time, believed there was. And that’s how he knew with a certainty there wasn’t a curse at all, and there never had been. He just didn’t have enough sense to plan for important things, like a wife and family and a home with a roof that wouldn’t cave in, and money in reserve to manage all the acres of land he owned.
But none of that mattered. Not now. Tom had his own plan, and tomorrow he’d see it done. And the best thing he could do for Mina would be to step aside.
“Seth? Do you have to leave?” she asked.
Confused, he looked at her. “Leave?”
Her eyes scanned his face. “You looked far away for a moment. I thought… You don’t have to leave?”
He shook his head quickly.
She released a breath and smiled at him. “I’m glad.”
Just one day with her. “There’s someone I need to see today, Minnie. You remember Will Repton’s the man who provided the funds to sail? The one to put out the call for Aimee that sent my sister into Tibet?”
“You didn’t see him first?”
“Needed to see you first, pretty. Besides,” he said, “Georgie already brought Aimee to see him. He’s not waiting in any suspense.”
“Oh.” She smiled. “That will be a happy visit.”
“Should be.” He caught her hand where it rested on his shoulder and held it on his chest, wanting to keep her close. “He sent his carriage for me this morning to deliver me to Richmond. The coachman’s waiting a few blocks away, seeing as how you live—well, here.” To soften his words, he squeezed her hands. “Will you come with me?”
“Are you certain you want me there?”
His heart cracked. “I’d want you anywhere, pretty.”
She smiled and snuggled closer, the sensation so sweet he nearly staggered.
Just one day.
Tomorrow he’d let her go.