My Last Duchess, стр. 65
If she was to execute her plan, now was the moment.
“I’m no maiden,” Philippa reminded him. And: “I need you.”
Every inch of her body was aware of the coiled strength of his. The way he held himself utterly still, not twitching or fidgeting.
“I wrote to my father,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I couldn’t allow him to worry about me any longer. It was thoughtless and unkind to give him such anxiety.” Jonas made asnuffling sound in his cradle, like a baby piglet. “My father will take me home, of course.”
Wick made a sudden movement but stilled.
She swallowed and looked back up at him. “He will come to retrieve me, and take me home to Rodney. That’s what he must do,because I—I was fool enough to lie with Rodney in the stables.”
“Ah, Philippa,” Wick said. And then she was enveloped by his arms.
“I know,” she said carefully, “that you would help me if you could.”
He held her, warm and close.
“If I had, if I had slept with another man, perhaps Rodney would refuse to marry me.” It sounded absurd. She gave up and startedover. “If I—”
He interrupted her. “Philippa.”
“I know,” she said miserably. “I know you’re too much of a gentleman to do what I am asking.”
“You are only playing at being a nursemaid, Phillipa. You will go home and be a lady again. But I have never had a gentleman’srank. Servant or bastard . . . either one is ineligible to marry you.” His voice was fierce, as ferocious as a wolf in winter.“You ask the impossible.”
“I’m sorry! I should never have suggested it.” Her words caught on a sob. “I didn’t think of it that way. It’s just that Ithought that you . . .”
“You knew that I desired you and thought I might help you escape from an odious marriage. I cannot have this conversationwith the young prince in the room,” Wick stated. He walked across the room, bringing Philippa with him, and opened the doorto the corridor.
Her heart was breaking. It had all gone wrong. She had insulted Wick. Of course, he couldn’t do as she asked. It was as ridiculousas the idea that he should marry her. He was the son of a grand duke. She was a fool—a stupid, naive fool from a small village,and she should have stayed there. Though if you looked at it another way, he was a servant, and she was a lady. The outcomewas obvious.
Besides, her idea was ridiculous, born of desperation. Obviously Wick would never, ever, sleep with an unmarried lady—evenif she had begged him.
Her cheeks were burning, as she followed Wick into the corridor and shut the door behind her.
But she came from strong stock, and she would not crumple. “I apologize for asking you to do something so insulting to yoursense of honor,” she said, keeping her voice steady. And she even managed to summon up a wisp of a smile. “I know you areno debaucher of maidens.”
He did not return her smile. “My father was as much. My mother worked in the castle’s laundry. I cannot, ever, act as he did.”
Philippa nodded. “You are not like your father. And you mustn’t think twice about Rodney. I shall explain everything to myfather, and I will make him understand.” She would not burden Wick with the truth: that her father would marry her to Rodney willy-nilly.
“I could kill Rodney, if you wish. Perhaps I should do it whether you wish me to or not.”
She blinked and saw that his eyes were entirely serious. She let out a muffled laugh. “No! Rodney is . . . Rodney is not terrible.I exaggerated the matter when I told you about him. I will tell my father that I don’t wish to marry Rodney, and that willbe that.”
She held out her hand. “I have heard that fine ladies in London shake hands.”
He looked down at her hand in the dim corridor. “Are you a fine lady?”
“No, but I wish I were, for your sake.”
“So you could buy me?”
Her hand dropped. “Buy you?”
“I’m pretty, in my own way,” he said neutrally. “Ladies have indicated that they might be willing to support me in a granderfashion than does Gabriel.”
For a moment she didn’t understand him, then a flash of rage went through her body. “Now you have insulted me, as surely asI did you,” she snapped. “I think this conversation has gone quite far enough.” She turned to open the door to the nursery.
His hand shot out, held the door shut.
“Wick,” she said, staring at his hand against the dark wood, “I must enter that nursery. I should pack. I am leaving tomorrow.”
She didn’t feel him move, or sense a flash of his arms, nothing . . . and yet suddenly she was spun around and found herselfwrapped in his arms.
“I would let you buy me,” he said finally, his voice hoarse.
She managed a shaky smile. Then she took a deep breath and put her hands on his face, drawing his lips to hers.
“How much?” she whispered.
“I’ve been told I’m worth a fortune.” His voice had a bleak note.
“I haven’t much money.” Her tongue stole out, ran along the seam of his lips, tasted that wildness that he concealed withhis upright body, his unmoving face.
“There’s a special rate on . . . I’m going for a ha’penny,” he whispered against her lips.
This time she kissed him.
Philippa didn’t know how long they stood in the corridor. With her eyes closed, her only sensations came from the press ofWick’s powerful body, the drugging sensation of his mouth, the way his hands shaped and teased her.
Then she became aware he was saying something. “I didn’t mean to insult you by talking of the women who offered to buy me.”His voice was low and rasping. “But I am constrained. I cannot ask you to marry me. The only conceivable relationship between a butler and a lady is