Undone by His Kiss (30 page)

“It means I care very deeply for you.” She shook her head slowly as if to correct herself. “I love you. I want to be with you, but I can’t marry you.”

“You’re not making sense.” He loosened his hold and tipped her chin so she matched his eyes. “I work with facts. I compare risk and benefit. I reason with logic and rational thought and everything you’re saying to me now is a contradiction. Am I misunderstanding?”

She stayed silent for several excruciating breaths, her expression unreadable.

“I do want to be with you, Jasper.” Her eyes glistened with tears. “I can’t marry you though.”

“Are you suggesting you’d become my mistress?” He released her and walked a few feet away, tense with anger and bombarded by a plethora of conflicted emotions. After what she’d just stated concerning her birth, she couldn’t be accepting of the same path.

Stunned by his question, her eyes grew wide as if coming to an awesome realization, comprehension of all they’d experienced, the words they’d exchanged, taking root and settling. “No.” Her word expressed resolute finality. “I can’t be with you like this. I didn’t mean for this to happen, and now it has and I don’t know what I feel or what to do. Everything is different. It’s all changed.” Tears coursed down her cheeks and she wiped them away with haste. “I thought I understood, but now I’m scared that I’m like my mother and I’ve spent so long, so many years, protecting myself from becoming her. Now, in one night, with one decision, I’ve altered everything. Bound to a man by emotion but unable to have him in my life.”

He took a step toward her but she held her hand up to ward him off.

“Don’t.” She wiped her cheeks again. “There’s nothing for you to solve here. Nothing to say. I need to think, away from you.” She gathered her gown from the floor and attempted to reassemble herself, and he quickly came to her aid though he didn’t utter a word. And when she collected all her belongings and stood in the doorframe about to leave, she glanced over her shoulder as if soaking in his image, before she hurried down the stairs and away, leaving him altered in the very worst way.

The words were there on her tongue, waiting to be said.

My mother’s mind is no longer right. I worry whenever I leave her for long periods of time. Her disposition is unpredictable and her emotions erratic. She’s a shadow of herself since my father left. Sometimes for weeks, she lives in an alternate world, where love hasn’t hurt her or injured her pride. Then all of a sudden, she rejoins life as if nothing ever happened. Except I know. I notice and watch and wait for any sign of inconsistency to reveal she’s having another lapse of sound mindedness. I will forever care for her of course, but the future may not be easy. As much as I love you, Jasper, I could never bring the shame of illegitimacy to your doorstep, never mind the embarrassment of my mother’s declining health. I wish it could be different, but while I strive for independence, a piece of me will always be tied to the past.

Yet she couldn’t form the words. Not when he believed her worth his love and attention, precious enough for a marriage proposal. He regarded her with the highest esteem.

Not at all like her father. Willing to discard her without a backward glance or obligatory consideration other than a sum settled to meet the financial burden of their future.

Jasper loved her. She saw it in his eyes as he leaned into her, and made her his in the most intimate of ways, more precious than words. Still, she couldn’t confide her mortification, the risk to his reputation outweighing the embarrassment to hers. She didn’t regret a minute they’d spent together. Instead she mourned what she wanted with all her heart, but rightfully couldn’t have.

Snapping her focus to the present, she rushed down the street as far from the apartments as her slippers could carry her. Tears stung her eyes, the words a bitter taste in her mouth. She wanted to spit them out or swallow them away. To be rid of them once and for all, exhausted of guarding a secret that had no solution.

A cool breeze stirred the leaves on the cobbles and she pushed further down the street, fighting the onslaught of emotion that warred against her. In the deepest corners of her heart she knew Jasper didn’t judge. That he wouldn’t exclude her or her mother. His character composed of goodness and exceptional benevolence.

But what of reputation?

Did it matter? He’d gone against his brother’s wishes and formed a business venture all his own. He’d openly confessed his feelings, suggested marriage, all the while knowing of her illegitimate birth. Wouldn’t he likewise understand about her mother? To the depths of her soul, she knew he would.

So why had she run? Why had she pushed him away after experiencing the most wonderful life-changing afternoon? She stopped, almost tumbling off the curb with riveting force. What in all heavens was she doing? Running scared? She was no coward. She was strong and independent. She made choices that suited her needs, not impinged on the needs of others.

But her mother…

No. This was her life to live. She wouldn’t allow her mother’s choices to dictate her future and destroy the love she held for Jasper.

She’d made a terrible mistake. Fleeing from the most incredible man she’d ever known. A man who whispered
I love you, Miss Shaw
in her ear while he made sweet sensual love to her. A man whose caresses seared her soul, whose kisses bound her heart. A man who made her heart drum with one glance of his amazing green eyes.

She shook her head, awestruck at her stupidity. Determined to reverse her course, she jetted into the street, anxious to apologize to Jasper for her ridiculous flight.

Chapter 30

He watched the scene occur as if he hung on a cloud, above the action, but too far away to intercede. Her bonnet, a spot of gold in the flow of pedestrian traffic, kept Emily within eyeshot, no matter he’d run through the London streets in complete dishabille, without waistcoat and cravat, his emotions as devastated as his assemble. He’d almost reached her when she came to an abrupt stop. He did so in kind, his chest heaving a ragged breath of relief. She turned. To make her way back to him? With hope she’d come to her senses.

Again he spurred to motion, anxious to reclaim her within his arms and reassure her fears, but she bolted into the street without heed of the corner where a sleek phaeton whipped around the curb startling a mule attached to a coal-heaver’s cart at the center of the chaotic tangle of coaches and conveyances. She dodged the oncoming phaeton with efficient grace and maneuvered past the heaver’s cart. A pulse of reprieve settled his heart.

But that calm was short lived.

The coal worker, frantic to move his wagon and unable to grasp the mule’s reins, dropped his shovel to the pavement in a careless gesture and it landed in Emily’s path. The toe of her slipper caught on the iron handle as it clattered to the street without warning. His heart lurched, an unbidden warning wrenched from his throat as he vaulted to intercede, but he was too far. Too slow. And Emily crumbled to the street before he could catch her, the threatening thunder of London’s carriage traffic surrounding her prone form in the middle of the congested thoroughfare, no matter riders and drivers alike did their best to avoid the situation.

He hadn’t saved her from the hostile mob in Hanover Square to see her perish here. He hadn’t made love to her, offered his heart, to end in tragedy…no matter his emotions were trampled.

He reached her before the furious rebellion in his head ceased and knelt to lift her away from danger, a few gawking passersby pausing before continuing their well-planned day.

She stared at him in silence, her eyes wide, as if she was stunned by his presence. At least he hoped she’d experienced more fright than harm. Still her hands trembled where she gripped his shoulders, curling into his shirt collar as he lifted her up and away. He pushed through the throng of bustling pedestrians until he reached the sheltering alcove of a nearby building and gently set her on her feet, retaining his hold in case her legs proved unsteady, reliving their close call at George Street just the other day.

She swayed and he tightened his grip, concerned she might collapse again. “You have a penchant for falling in harm’s way, Miss Shaw. Every time I turn you’re in need of rescue.” Worry sharpened his tone to a razor’s edge and her bewildered stare reminded she’d just endured a harrowing scare. “I’m sorry.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “I…” He gathered her close, needing the moment to settle his emotions as much as she, muttering the end of his apology. “I knew I couldn’t reach you in time.”

Aware they were somewhat visible to public attention, he reluctantly withdrew. “Let’s get you home so you can rest.” He dropped the words beside her ear and purposely led her to the curb , where he hailed a hackney, barked directions and entered right after.

The lady was in possession of his heart. He could never allow harm to fall in her path.

Emily might have objected to Jasper’s domineering handling. Instead her heart thudded a heavy beat, overcome by the expression of stark alarm which masked his face when she’d peered up from the cobbles. His eyes were intense, his lips compressed in a grim line of concern and uncertainty and in that, she’d never felt more cherished. Unlike his gentle lovemaking, unlike his sweet caresses and tender kisses, what she saw in his eyes reflected a hundred emotions ranging from fear to anger, affection and rebellion. She would never forget his expression, no matter what the future forced upon her. She’d merely tripped, unharmed aside from her battered perspective for the future, yet he’d offered her unfathomable depths of devotion as he’d stopped to secure her in his arms.

In that one exquisite moment lay the beauty of their relationship, the awestruck complication of the affectivity strung between them like her bracelet with many charms, all of them unique and beautiful in their own making, each one singular, a story to be told. Jasper’s eyes evoked dozens of emotions, his smile provoked myriad reactions, and in that he excelled, somehow providing her the opportunity to experience any number of feelings with a glance, a flick of his lashes, a soft spoken word. She; who’d endeavored with relentless determination to seek autonomy and control.

They rode in silence, her eyes drawn to the scenery outside the window, her thoughts returned to their visit to the aviary when she’d intimated at her mother’s condition and found his reply free of censure. Yet what she had said, her innocuous reply, hardly comprised an explanation of her mother’s condition. She frowned, their relationship shadowed by her past and his future. Surely his brother would not approve of her. Surely to risk her heart and offer her love would provide disappointment in the end.

Or did she invent these excuses out of fear? Would she ever erase the scar left by her father’s abandonment? That morning when she’d spied him across the street she’d possessed no real understanding of society and how the world worked. She was a child with a limited view of life, happy in her sheltered upbringing, unaware her mother had never married her father. It was not a question one would ask, most especially when one was told repeatedly how they three comprised the perfect family. Even then her mother had created an alternate truth.

But as Emily grew older and inquired of inconsistencies, of the random visits from her father or his extended stay away from their home, she came to realize her sheltered existence was intentional, providing a convenient manner to keep her quiet, stifle her questions, no matter the truth existed there at the empty place setting on the dining room table.

It wasn’t until he was forced that her father denied her existence. And then he’d never looked back. That truth cut the deepest. And while the pain of rejection might have dulled with time, her mother’s decline had replaced Emily’s anger with resentment and mottled emotion. While they might have progressed from her mother’s indiscretion and built a loving life, Bianca’s devastation and subsequent irrational behavior kept the wound open, the perpetual ache of rejection ever present.

How tempting the future could be, if only to separate from that pain.

She settled her eyes on Jasper. He offered a comforting smile in return.

He loved her.

What was he thinking? Why was she thinking? He made her think too much. Made her remember, want, yearn, believe a different outcome lay within reach.

Perhaps she possessed the courage to embrace a new beginning.

Her breath caught as a subsequent thought blossomed.

The divine pleasure of the heat of his palm against her inner thigh.

How he made her question the future she’d planned and avowed with meticulous care she’d never understand. Jasper encouraged her to let go, take flight and soar among the clouds. Yet if she did, she’d lose sight of everyone and everything, blinded by the brilliance of the sun, the ground a great distance away, the fall so far below no recovery seemed possible.

The hack rattled to a stop before she could draw further conclusions. She gripped the handle instead of Jasper’s extended arm and tested her legs, once again sturdy and dependable. It was then, as she released the bar that she saw the cuff of her sleeve had torn, her charm bracelet lost. The notice brought disappointment, but she shook it away ignoring the frivolity, and grasped Jasper’s elbow as he led her to the front door.

A flash of ivory revealed her mother in the upstairs window. Everything was about to become intricately more complicated. The door whipped open before they’d accomplished the walk. Only it was Mary on the other side, her face an asseveration of distress.

“Miss Emily, thank heavens you’ve returned. Your mother has been very unsettled. I didn’t know what to do.” And then after a beat, “Are you all right? Has something happened?” The housekeeper stepped backward to allow them entry, her eyes running over them from head to toe. As would be expected, she didn’t mention Jasper’s lack of coat or her dusty tattered skirts, although together they must have presented quite a pair.

“I’m home now, Mary. I apologize for leaving you in this predicament.” She noted the housekeeper’s saddened expression likely mirrored by her own. “How has my mother behaved?”