She still just sat there, leaning into his palms now, letting him hold the weight of her breasts. She closed her eyes. “I cannot.”
In a flash, he threw her off him. She was on her back in the middle of the rug and now he was on top of her, lying flat on top of her so that she couldn’t move.
Their noses were nearly touching. He yelled in her face, “Why the hell not? The truth, Helen, now, or I will tie you down again, and this time I won’t build in an escape route for you.”
She swallowed.
To his astonishment, tears were seeping out of her eyes, streaking down her cheeks. He cursed.
He rose above her. She immediately turned onto her side, bringing her legs up to her chest, and she cried. She stuffed her fist into her mouth. It didn’t matter. The tears kept coming.
The discipline mistress of Court Hammering was lying on her side on the floor crying her eyes out.
He cursed again, leaned down and pulled her upright. “This will surely bow my back,” he said, as he managed to pull her up and over his shoulder. He staggered to the large wing chair in front of the fireplace. He eased down into it, pulling her across his lap, holding her tightly against him. “No, sweetheart, don’t cry. It shatters me. You know that a big girl shouldn’t have to cry about anything at all. No, a big girl would tell me immediately what bothers her. I can tidy up any mess, Helen, solve just about any problem, strike down any person who is bothering you. Of course, first, you have to trust me.”
He rocked her. Finally she dried up. She was hiccuping. He smiled as he kissed her hair.
“He’s alive,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest.
He blinked. “What did you say, dearest? You’re thinking I’m alive and quite all right, even though I had to lift you off the floor and pull you over my shoulder and actually carry you over here to this nice big chair that thankfully holds both of us?”
He felt her draw a deep, steadying breath. He pulled her nightgown over her naked side. He eased her up. When she was sitting, her head lowered, her hair nearly covering her lovely profile, he said, “What’s wrong, Helen? You didn’t like my games?”
“Yes,” she said. “Your games were exhilarating. The escape—that was very clever of you. If I had not happened upon turning my wrist in just that way, I wouldn’t have found it. I would have felt very stupid when you finally showed it to me.”
“Marry me, Helen. I’ll devise new knots to tease you. I’ll contrive a very special discipline for you on our wedding night.”
She turned then, and the nightgown fell open. He resolutely kept his eyes on her face. Her eyes were red, her nose was red, and there were tear streaks on her cheeks. He gently touched his fingertips to her beloved face. “I’m not making love to you, roaring over you, all frenzy and madness. No, I am containing myself. I am simply holding you, all calm and controlled, and your nightgown is gaping open, and your beautiful breasts not three inches from my itching fingers.”
She smiled, but it was a pitiful thing, that smile of hers, and it fell away completely when she said, “I said that he is alive.”
He said nothing at all. He didn’t want to. He had an awful foreboding. He wanted to tell her not to say any more, but he didn’t. He waited for the guillotine to fall.
“My husband is still alive. I received a letter about six months ago. I don’t know where he is. The letter came from Brest, on the far west coast of Brittany.”
He grunted. He had traveled through the picturesque town some seven years before, when the Treaty of Amiens was still holding together. “There’s nothing there as I recall, except fishermen. Why is he there? Why isn’t he here? What happened to him? Are you certain that it is his handwriting? What is the damned fellow’s name?”
“Gerard Yorke, the second son of the First Secretary of the Admiralty, Sir John Yorke.”
Well, that was a kick. “Isn’t the First Secretary as old as that oak tree just outside the window?”
“Yes, at least as old.”
He had to keep calm, keep a firm grip on things. There had to be a way out of this, there had to be. “Have you written to him? Or did you go to see him when you were in London?”
“I wrote to Sir John, telling him about the letter. He did not reply. I wrote him once more and enclosed a copy of the letter. He still did not reply. The day after Gray and Jack’s wedding, I went to the Admiralty at Whitehall. He refused to see me. He sent his secretary to tell me that his son had died a hero’s death and that he had nothing at all to say to me. He didn’t know why I would send him a ridiculous letter that wasn’t even written by his son. He said that since I had not even managed to provide my husband a child, I had no claim on him or on his family.”
“He sent his secretary to tell you this?”
“Yes, the poor man was embarrassed to his toes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this two nights ago at the inn when I poured out my soul to you?”
“Because at that moment in time I didn’t want to marry you, nor any man, ever again. Just look at the one husband I did take on—he returns to haunt me and I never even liked him after about two weeks of being his wife.” She shuddered at the memories, sighed, and looked down at her hands. “Maybe it wasn’t even two weeks.”
“I see. Why didn’t you tell me when I had you here, all nice and tied down to the bed?”
She cursed. He was so surprised that he just stared at her. “Why?”