What a Woman Desires (8 page)

“I can’t delete your words from memory. I’m sorry.” He snatched her hands from his face and she flinched.

He turned his back to her and glared toward the sky. Goddamn it. Her revelation had jumbled his thoughts and emotions like a wind whipping up a storm. The last thing he wanted was to frighten her, but his rage was too raw to control or tame. It wasn’t just Baxter’s actions scoring his usual control. What of the master, her father? The kin meant to care for her? What of Mrs. Danes and Jane? If Thomas had failed to be there for Monica, his employer was an even deeper failure. Noel Danes had little more than shame to accompany him into the next world.

“Thomas, please listen to me.”

He shook his head, his body humming with the need to lash out, to kiss her, to take her and show her how his love would have felt to her if it had ever been possible to demonstrate. He turned around and planted his hands on his hips. “My fury does not just stem from Baxter alone.”

“Then what?”

He clenched his jaw. “It’s your father.”

“Papa? But he’s gone. Dead. It’s up to me what happens—”

“You asked for your father’s protection and he refused it. Everything I am, I gave to him. All I expected in return from him was, with my service, he could better ensure the well-being and safety of the people living in his home and in this village. Now I know the man I held in such high regard was nothing more than a damn social-climbing coward, I am angrier than you will ever understand.”

She stepped toward him, her hand outstretched as if to touch him. He raised his hand, warning her off. She stopped, dropped her hand to her side. “Tomorrow we bury him.” She lifted her hand and pressed it to her heart. “I want nothing of social standing or influence. I am independent, earning my own living.” She swallowed. “I won’t beg you, but I would much rather we work together than apart to find a solution that suits everyone, including Mama and Jane. I am happy now. Really happy. Please, let me make you happy too. I do not need to sell the house. I will find another way so we can all stay in the lives we want.”

“How?” Frustration erupted inside him and, before he could stop himself, he grasped her hand. The warmth of her skin was lethal and his heart twisted. Now he knew she had tried to come home, tried to escape Baxter, and had made it as a stage star in Bath despite her family’s rejection, Monica was a bigger and braver person to him than ever before. Why would she need him?

He grasped her hand tighter, willing her to hear him. “If you stay here, I want to serve you.”

“And you will if I stay, but—”

“How, Monica? How will a woman so independent, one who has suffered at the hands of a man like Baxter, ever truly lean on another? Baxter took your trust and ripped it to pieces. How would it ever be possible for you to wholly trust again? How will you ever need another man so solidly beside you as I would need to be?”

The color drained from her face and he dropped her hand.

Silence pulsed between them like a heartbeat.

She would never want a man who thought and behaved the way he undoubtedly would whenever he was near her. Thomas swallowed against the dryness in his throat. Yet, he didn’t want her to go.

He ran his gaze over her face, lower, to linger on her lips. “I might work for your family, but, privately, I’m a man who leads his own life, his own way. Your father’s actions have twisted a poisoned knife of betrayal inside me, but you are the right person to take over from him and you cannot do right by me, your sister, or this village by leaving and returning to Bath.”

She blinked and panic filled her eyes. “Whether I stay or go, I’ll find a way.”

He shook his head. “To run this estate as it deserves, with your heart and soul, means you leave Bath. I am in no position to demand you do anything, but if you decide that is what you will do . . .” He met her gaze directly. “I need to know you want me beside you. I need to know you need me.”

She stared. Fear, confusion, and doubt rolled like a gathering storm through her eyes. “What are you saying?”

He stared into her eyes and the sudden urge to tell her, shock her, that he wanted her to need him as a man rocketed through him. Their relationship had wavered from the mistress and servant path only once, and Monica had seen to it that things were put back to their correct stations within minutes of their illicit snatched moments. With her kisses still warm on his lips, she gathered her skirts and hurried back to the house, pulling Jane with her before her sister could question why she came upon Monica and Thomas alone in the stables.

That time was never spoken of again and her rejection of him was clear.

He cleared his throat. “I need to know you need me as your helper, your groom, maybe even your advisor sometimes. Your papa trusted me entirely. I hope you’ll do the same.”

Her cheeks flushed and something he couldn’t name flashed through her gaze before she lifted her chin. “I haven’t needed anyone for a long time. I don’t know if I can promise you I’ll take your advice, but I can promise I’ll need your help.”

“That’s why the future of Marksville hangs in the balance like never before.” With a final look at her beautiful face, Thomas turned and strode toward Jake, fluidly levering himself astride the huge horse.

Clenching his jaw, he faced her. “Go back to the house. Your mother and sister need you.”

Leaving her standing alone and despising himself for doing so, Thomas kicked Jake into a gallop. From the first day he’d seen Baxter, instinct told Thomas the bastard was no good, but he’d put his suspicions and dislike down to wanting Monica for his own. Why in God’s name hadn’t he spoken up and had Baxter ejected from her life? He cursed. Who in the hell would have listened to him? The master? Monica?

She was right about his delusions over the family. Why would they listen or care what he had to say about such things? Why would they care when they sent their daughter back to the devil, even when he’d discarded his disguise? But what if he’d said something to
Monica
? Would she have listened to him and been spared Baxter’s fists?

The thought would haunt him for the rest of his life.

From this point on, Baxter’s face would taunt and provoke Thomas into action. There was no way the man would get away with hurting his girl. Never. He would track Baxter down and make him suffer tenfold for each and every blow he’d dared to lay upon the woman Thomas had loved for far too long.

Monica laid the book she’d been attempting to read on the small table beside her and stared across the parlor at her mother and Jane. They sat side by side on the settee, their heads bent close together as they worked on a large piece of needlework. Dusk fell outside and since her mother’s outcry before breakfast, the rest of the day had passed without incident since Monica returned to the house after riding with Thomas.

She’d spent the majority of the afternoon at her bedroom window, shamefully watching for him, hoping he’d have need to come into the house and find her. She hated the tension between them and had no idea how to go about diffusing it. The little she’d thought of him during her years in Bath felt impossible, for now she could think of nothing else but him. Each passing hour brought more intense speculation of the amorous and the fearful.

She should be forming plans and ideas of how to orchestrate the best way forward for her family and the staff. Instead, idiotic musings of regret and stupidity about her lack of contact with him over the years harassed her mind. He might be her family’s groom, but to her, Thomas had always been so much more than a servant. She respected him, trusted him . . . may well have once loved him.

Despite the absurdity of the notion, time and again, Monica questioned whether or not she and Thomas might have had a future if either of them hadn’t been so firmly bound by their families. Not that Thomas felt at all bound by his . . . only loved.

No matter her feelings, sensibility reigned supreme in Monica’s mind. Her and Thomas’s ideals of family life were vastly different, and she doubted either of them would sacrifice pride in the name of love.

“Oh, you silly, clumsy girl. Have you learned nothing? That stitching is a disgrace.”

Monica’s temper instantly rose as her mother scolded Jane . . . only to turn away again in frustration when her sister apologized, having most likely done nothing more than a harmless missed stitch. Dinner might have passed in relative peace, peppered only with their mother’s criticism of the food rather than her children, but now it seemed the beast Monica remembered so well in her mother had reawakened.

She rose to her feet and walked to the sideboard where Stephanie had laid out some tea. “Would you like more tea, Mama?”

Her mother snapped her head from Jane and met Monica’s gaze. She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

Monica pushed down her irritation and smiled. “You and Jane have been at work for such a long time, I thought you might welcome some refreshment.”

“At who’s cost, that is the question. I see you eat and drink everything in my house as though you never left. If your father were here . . .” Her mother closed her eyes and after a moment, her shoulders slumped. “If your father . . .”

“Oh, Mama.” Jane gathered the needlework and put it to one side. She took their mother’s hand. “It’s all right. Monica was just trying to look after you, that’s all.”

Their mother opened her eyes and looked at Jane, a single tear rolling slowly over her cheek, her brow knitted in confusion and her eyes glazed with fear. “I’m so afraid, Jane. So very afraid.”

Jane opened her arms and their mother fell into her embrace, her head on her sister’s shoulder. Monica stared, her heart heavy and her defenses weakening. Jane was right. Everything at Marksville had changed; nothing would ever be the same again and with that, it meant Monica, too, had to make sacrifices. How big those sacrifices would have to be remained to be seen. Monica turned away and busied herself pouring the tea.

No one had yet mentioned tomorrow’s funeral to their mother, and Monica’s tolerance to stay quiet about the future had slowly stretched to breaking over the last hour. Her hands trembled around the handle of the teapot as Thomas’s words and angry gaze goaded her, urging her to break her silence and instigate a conversation.

As hard as it was to accept, Monica’s love for her mother had begun to resurface, and she didn’t want to cause her any more distress. She closed her eyes.
But how can I reassure her when I have no idea what to say, or any answers about what will happen after we bury Papa in the morning?

Opening her eyes, Monica picked up two cups of tea and approached her sister and mother. She put a cup on each side table by the settee. “Why don’t you try to take some tea, Mama? It will help you sleep. We have a difficult day tomorrow, you should rest.”

Jane widened her eyes and glared at Monica in silent warning not to continue, but Monica met her sister’s eyes with determination. As much as her care for her mother grew, Monica refused to treat the woman who gave birth to them like a child. Protecting her from the truth would be foolhardy in the long term. Her mother eased from Jane’s embrace and sat upright, facing Monica. “He only wanted what was best for us.”

Monica dragged her gaze from Jane’s, instantaneous irritation twisting her stomach. What was best for them was the last motivation in all of her father’s actions. “And you loved him, Mama. We know that.”

Her mother nodded and smiled softly. She reached for her tea and drank, her eyes once more glazed in thought. Monica returned to the sideboard, her feelings a mess of knots and tangles inside her. Time and again, she waited for a sense of sorrow to descend on her heart, but there was nothing more than a dull ache. Her lack of care that her father had passed was frightening.

She lifted her chin. No. She would not allow his condemnation to seep into her soul and undo all the good she had made in her life and the lives of others. How could her heart be frozen when it beat so wildly whenever Thomas stood close to her? Of course, he knew nothing of her life now, had never been witness to her friendships with Adam, his wife, and others at the theater. They were her family now. They had held her firm and steady over the countless times she’d wavered during the last few years since Malcolm’s abuse and her parents’ rejection.

If Thomas were to come with her to Bath, he would see she was little changed inside. She was still the girl who had once lived here and wanted to be loved and noticed by those supposed to love her without condition or expectation.

Tears burned her eyes and Monica quickly blinked, pulling back her shoulders. She was strong and successful. How in the world could she ever consider living at Marksville again? The only times of happiness she recalled were when riding her beloved Wilson . . . or when she had been alone with Thomas.

Monica smiled softly. It had been a wonderful day when Thomas’s father had approached Papa asking if he would consider giving his son a job. Five years her senior and as handsome as they come, her twelve-year-old self had developed an instant fascination with the young, vibrant, and hardworking Thomas Ashby. One that would last into her twenties.

Her smile dissolved. It had been Malcolm who’d turned her eye from Thomas. Malcolm, and his promise of making her dream of becoming an actress a reality. The excitement and prospect of living in Bath and never having to return to the country at the end of each Season had filled her heart and soul with unprecedented joy. With that emotion, Monica became entirely aware that Biddestone was not her home and Bath was where she belonged.

She filled her cup and returned to her seat. She glanced at Jane and her mother. They quietly talked once more, their hands gently touching—Monica excluded from the moment of maternal intimacy. She quickly picked up her book as unexpected hurt squeezed her heart. The words jumped and leaped about the page. She could not falter. The insistent and increasingly hurtful pressure her mother had piled on her eldest daughter to find a suitable husband, or else one be found for her, had beaten down Monica’s true soul with every passing year.

She could not forget that; could not lose focus on what mattered in her life now.

None of the
suitable
men her parents forced in front of her had come close to arousing Monica’s interest . . . much less her body and soul. Until Malcolm, only Thomas had made that happen. She always knew Thomas would never leave Biddestone, would never want more than a family and a legacy of dedicated service to pass on to his children.

The passion was still alive and bright when he spoke of Marksville and its surrounding estate, proving her assumptions right. Thomas still loved the land more than anything else. Including whatever she perceived to see in his eyes when he’d looked at her back then.

For her, Marksville would never be enough.

“I saw him with you, you know.”

Monica started and snapped her head toward her mother, forcing a smile. “Saw who, Mama?”

“Thomas. I saw you with him on his horse. I watched you from my bedroom window. If you think I will stand by and allow my and your father’s efforts of exposing you to the more genteel ways a lady should behave be wasted, you are sorely mistaken.”

“Mama, Thomas and I were merely—”

“Cavorting. Cavorting in public in the most shameful of ways. I have spoken to your father and he is to arrange for the marriage to be annulled forthwith.” Her mother sneered, her eyes flashing with triumph. “What your father says will be so in this house, young lady. Whatever you might think you are now, you are our daughter and you will comply with our wishes.”

Monica glanced at Jane and her sister widened her eyes, silently imploring Monica to play along with her mother’s failed remembrance or recognition of what she had seen that afternoon. Monica subtly shook her head and rose. She refused to patronize her mother by ignoring her state of mind—or pretending the deterioration wasn’t happening. If her mother’s mental health was declining, then she deserved the chance to acknowledge and come to terms with it.

Monica walked across the room and knelt in front of her mother, taking her hand from the needlework. Her heart thundered as she embarked on a tactic she would’ve thought impossible when she began her journey to the house the day before. Sympathy. Her heart broke for the woman in front of her. How could she have ever thought she held no love for her mother? She had loved her—always.

Swallowing hard, Monica smiled gently. “Thomas is my friend. Has always been my friend. We are not involved romantically in any way, I promise you.”

Her mother opened her mouth as if to protest, but then her eyes shadowed with confusion. She darted her gaze from Monica to Jane and back again. “But I saw you. I know I saw you.”

Monica squeezed her fingers. “You did. You did see us, Mama, but we are just friends. We were . . .” She hesitated, her heart twisting for a woman who looked the same, spoke the same, but now that Monica really saw her, was wholly different than the woman she’d known her entire life. She looked deep into her mother’s eyes, willing she hear her. “Thomas and I were discussing the funeral tomorrow. He will be there to do whatever you, Jane, or I require of him. He loved Papa as if he were his own blood and he loves us.
All
of us.”

“What do you speak of? What funeral?”

“Papa is dead, Mama. You know this. He was thrown from Paterson as they gallop—”

“You wicked, wicked girl.” Her mother vehemently shook her head, her eyes wide and bloodshot with anger. “Why are you saying these things? Your father is not dead! He loves you. He’s always loved you. He didn’t want you to go to Bath and become what you have, but still he loved you. You walk away from Thomas right now and do your duty as we have raised you to do.” She snatched her hand from Monica’s, her mouth twisted with venom. “You will marry whom we choose. You stop this selfish nonsense in Bath and marry a man who will make your father proud of you. We must seek a match that will do only good for this family.”

Frustration swept through Monica on a hot wave. She had seen this look of manic ambition on her mother’s face so many times before. She dipped her head, knowing she shouldn’t say her next words, but her possible neglect of Thomas prevented her refrain. “And Thomas wouldn’t be the man to do that? I thought Papa respected and admired him.”

“Don’t you dare take that tone with me. I know what is best for you and your sister. I will get my stick to you, so I will. Ring the bell. Get Mrs. Seton to bring my stick.”

Monica pushed to her feet, her temper snapping as she remembered the lashings her mother gave her for little more than spending at hour with Thomas in the fields. “I will do no such thing. Stop this, Mama. Right now.”

Silence fell upon the room like a heavy curtain. From the corner of her eye, Monica was aware that Jane sat as still as a statue, her hand raised to her mouth. Her mother continued to glare for a long moment before her brow creased and her eyes softened. “Oh, darling. Don’t cry. Whatever is the matter?”

Monica stiffened and lifted her fingers to her cheeks; they came away damp.
Now, I cry?
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Nothing is the matter.”

When her mother stood and put her arms around her, Monica thought her heart would break clean in half. In all the years she’d longed for such a demonstration of love, it finally came when her mother knew not what she did. “Papa and I love you so, but for you and Thomas to marry would be foolish on both sides. No good would come of it for either of you.”

Monica opened her eyes and tears blurred her vision. She could hardly argue with her mother’s words. If nothing else, her and Thomas together would be a simmering fire waiting to explode. Her passion and his together would only mean certain destruction.

Her mother snatched her arms from Monica with the same ferocity she’d embraced her. Monica’s heart beat fast to see another change in her mother’s eyes. They bulged with distain once more. “Are you listening to me?”

Monica lifted her chin and fought against her need to once more flee her situation. “Yes, you respect Thomas, but he is not good enough for your daughter. Would he be good enough for Stephanie?”