They were close, face-to-face in the dimness. She rose on her toes, bringing their faces closer still. Her expression was belligerent; banked anger lit her eyes. “Rawlingses are so very stubborn.”
Her eyes, narrowed, held his for an instant, then she flung away, crossing the room in a glide of swishing silk.
His own eyes narrowing, Gyles watched her go, replaying her words, then he realized.
She was a Rawlings, had been born a Rawlings, too.
Releasing the doorknob, he followed her to her bed.
She’d risked a lot on a stubborn man changing his mind.
As she sat in the swaying carriage the next day, Francesca had ample time to dwell on that fact. To consider all she’d risked-her future happiness, indeed her life, for she was too deeply committed, now, to draw back. She’d placed her heart on the scales in allowing herself to fall in love with him; that was done and could not be undone.
It wasn’t just her future, either, but his, too, if only he would acknowledge it. She was sure he saw the truth, but getting him to admit it, act on it? There lay the rub.
How to get him to change his mind? The question fully absorbed her as the miles rolled past. It all seemed to hinge on who was the more stubborn-on whether she was willing to risk all to gain her dream.
She tried to see forward, to think ahead, imagining the possibilities. Thoughts of the past night kept intruding. She didn’t want to think about that.
About the way he’d closed a hand in the hair at her nape and swung her to him, tipped her head back, and kissed her as if he’d been starving. About the way his hands had raced over her, stripping the silk from her, greedy for her skin, her flesh, her body. The feel of him over her, around her, inside her, hard and commanding, demanding. He’d wanted and taken with the ruthlessness of a conqueror, and she’d been with him every step of the way. Taunting, defiant, taking her own pleasure in his possessiveness, recklessly urging him on.
Holding him to her long after, when the tempest had passed and left them drained.
She flicked a glance sideways, briefly studied his profile. One elbow propped on the window ledge, his chin supported in that hand, he was watching the streetscape of London roll by.
She’d woken in the night to find him curled around her, his chest to her back, one hand splayed protectively over her stomach. When she’d woken in the morning-been woken by the maids scurrying furiously-he’d been gone. The chaos of the morning had left her no time to think, let alone reflect, not until they’d rolled out of the park and Jacobs had turned his team toward the capital.
They’d stopped at the Dower House, but Lady Elizabeth and Henni had been out walking. Horace had received them, jovial as ever, unsurprised that they might indulge in “a bolt to the capital.” They’d left messages of farewell with him.
It had been Horace who’d been the focus of her thoughts as they’d bowled through Berkshire. Horace who’d been Gyles’s father figure through his formative years-the years in which a boy learned by observation the ways in which men behaved to women. It was obvious that Horace was sincerely devoted to Henni, but that perception owed more to Henni’s calm happiness than any overt behavior on Horace’s part.
Horace had taught Gyles to be a gentleman, and Horace eschewed all outward shows of affection, of love, toward his wife, regardless of his true feelings.
Eyeing Gyles, Francesca mentally ran through the catalogue she’d assembled of the actions, the small gestures all but buried beneath the activities of their lives, that had left her hope intact.
He’d tried, deliberately, to dash that hope, to lead her to believe he was denying her absolutely, denying any chance of her dream transmuting to reality, yet all the while his actions spoke differently.
Not just his actions in their bed, although their tenor certainly did not support the facade he’d tried to project-that of an expert lover who nevertheless remained emotionally indifferent to her. She suppressed a dismissive humph: he had never been emotionally indifferent to her-the idea!
How he could expect her to believe it she didn’t know.
Especially when there were a thousand other things that gave him away. Like his fussing when they’d stopped for lunch at an inn. Was she well wrapped and warm enough? The bricks at her feet hot enough? Was the food to her liking?
Did he think she was blind?
He knew she wasn’t. That puzzled her. It was as if he’d accepted that she’d know or at least suspect that he felt more for her, but that he was hoping, if not expecting, that she’d pretend she didn’t know.
That didn’t, to her mind, make sense, yet it wasn’t, she was sure, an inaccurate summation of their present state.
He said one thing but meant, and wanted, another. He’d said they would go their separate ways-she’d be greatly surprised if that came to pass.
Did he want some sort of facade in place, like Horace and Henni? Was he hoping she’d agree to that? Could she?
In all honesty, she doubted she could. Her temperament was not amenable to hiding her emotions.
Was that the direction he wished to steer them in?
If so, why?