My Last Duchess, стр. 66

She swallowed, biting her lip when she saw the pain in his eyes. “But I would marry you.”

The words had tumbled from her lips. “If you were to ask,” she added quickly.

“I am a servant, with a grand lineage on one side but no wealth,” Wick said bleakly. “And the truth of it is that I . . .I love you, Philippa.” It was his turn to cup her face in his hands. “Which means I cannot make you a servant. If I couldmarry any lady, any woman in the world, from queen to beggar, I would never choose another than you. And I mean that.”

Philippa’s lips trembled. “I love you too,” she whispered.

“But I cannot marry,” Wick said, his eyes searching hers, begging for understanding. “If I were a different person, and thisa different place and time, I would have had a wedding ring on your finger a week ago.”

“Oh, Wick,” she whispered, collapsing forward against his chest. A tear dampened his shirt.

“I would give anything to call you mine.” His voice was harsh and true.

“Then I shall have to buy you,” Philippa said, brushing away that tear and another that followed it. She pulled back and caughthis eye, because this was important. “I am not a child to be handed from one man’s hand to another.”

His brows drew together. “I do not—”

“You do.” She said it clearly, not angrily. “I love you.”

He swallowed hard.

“And I am perfectly capable of making up my own mind about the disposition of my body.”

“I know.”

She opened the door at her back. “Then come.” She held out her hand.

His voice emerged strangled from his chest. “Philippa, I cannot—”

“If you love me, if you respect me as a person who owns myself and my own body, who is servant to no one and owned by no one . . .”

“A gentleman wouldn’t,” he said hoarsely.

She smiled at that, picked up his hand. “You just told me, sir, that you are no gentleman.”

He followed her, through the darkened nursery, to the door at the far end, through the door.

From a chair at the side of the bedroom, she snatched her reticule, and opened it. “If the only way I may have you is to buyyou . . .”

He let out a half groan, half laugh. “Philippa!”

She reached out, caught his hand, and wrapped his fingers around a ha’penny. “Then I own you. And although you didn’t ask,my price was very low. I was yours from your first kiss. I suppose you could say that I came for free.”

The hunger in his eyes made her feel more beautiful than she had in the whole of her life.

Still, he remained motionless, exercising that infernal self-control of his.

She let the silence grow, then: “I have bought a house, but not possessed it.” She was quite sure that the look in her eyesrivaled that of any light skirts on the streets of London. “And I am sold, but not yet enjoyed.”

There was another beat of silence in the room, during which Philippa’s heart drummed in her throat.

“That was a terrible pun,” Wick observed. There was something deep and slow in his voice. She bit back a smile.

He put one hand to his perfectly tied cravat. Philippa held her breath.

Eyes fixed on hers, he slowly, slowly lifted a fold of snowy linen, over, up, over, through . . . she saw his hands from thecorner of her vision, because she was drinking in his expression, the taut desire that shaped his face.

Then she raised her hands to the cord that held her wrapper together. A moment later, she was wearing only a light muslinnightgown. One glance down at her chest and she felt herself turning pink with embarrassment. Instinctively, she folded herarms over her breasts, hoping to flatten her nipples before Wick saw them.

She couldn’t tell if he had. He shrugged off his heavy coat and put it over a chair.

“You,” Philippa said, and cleared her throat. “You look . . .”

“Without that livery,” Wick stated, “I am a man, nothing but a man.”

Joy sparked her heart. “Do you wish me to remove my nightgown?”

He straightened, a shoe in one hand. “If you’re having second thoughts, I’ll leave.”

She gasped no, and a smile quirked the corner of his mouth. Then she added: “I think I would feel more comfortable with my nightgown on.”

Wick nodded. He dispensed with his other shoe, pulled off his stockings, then paused, hands on his waistband.

Philippa realized her voice had died. It was just that his body was so taut and muscled, like nothing she’d seen or imagined.It was a wicked smile he threw her, the kind that seducers threw maidens . . . though she was no maiden.

“I should probably warn you,” Wick said, but she hardly heard him. He removed his breeches, and now his hands were on hissmalls.

“What?” she breathed.

“It could be that Rodney and I don’t—” Still his hands didn’t move.

“Don’t what?” she said, unable to imagine what he was getting at.

“Don’t resemble each other.” His smalls hit the floor, and Philippa’s mouth fell open. She instinctively fell back a step,ending up against the wrought-iron bed frame.

“Oh dear.” Her voice came out in a squeak. The memory of Rodney’s member flashed through her mind: Rodney’s little member,she now realized. There was no comparison.

“I gather we don’t,” Wick said, a wry, yet tender note in his voice.

“No,” Philippa breathed. “You don’t.”