Page 60 of Married to the Duke By Midnight

His body heated further at the idea of sitting close beside her, but he once again told himself that he had to be patient. He remembered Thornston’s words about allowing Jo to come to him rather than him pushing her to be intimate. Robert knew it was the right path forward and he could be patient for Jo’s sake.

Jo started cleaning his hands in silence.

“Weren’t you wearing gloves?” she asked after a while.

“I…” Robert began, then remembered picking them up from the beach once he walked back to his horse. He could not remember why he had pulled them off in the first place. “No,” he finally settled on, which seemed to be answer enough for Jo.

They were silent again for several minutes. The only sounds were Jo dipping the cloth in water and their breathing: Jo’s even and calm, Robert’s that seemed too loud and uneven.

“I should explain,” Jo said at length as she was intensely focused on Robert’s hand.

27

“We promised each other to be honest, and I wasn’t.” Jo took a breath to fortify herself.

When she had been walking on the beach, she had promised herself she would explain it to him. She had been so determined when she had been walking along the country road, sweaty and with aching feet, but now that she was there, opposite him and had to utter the words, it was much more difficult.

At least she could focus on his hands and not his eyes. She could not believe that he had tried to dig through the chalk to reach her with his bare hands. It made a tight curl of delight bloom in her stomach. She tried to convince herself that it meant nothing. Robert would have done the same for anyone he thought might have been trapped under the chalk. Jo would have done the same. Yet it felt significant as she looked at his jagged nails and damaged hands.

Uncle Horace had, of course, cared about her, but he had been sick for the past five years, and bedridden for the last two, and Jo had been left largely on her own. Beatrice worried about her, but she was in London and Jo only saw her infrequently, when her father was gone for an extended period of time, and she and Mr. Oakley came to stay at the inn for a few weeks to see her mother and brother. Ambrose had known Jo all her life but would never have shown even a fraction of the concern that Robert had.

“That morning… yesterday morning,” Jo forced herself to continue. “I overheard Miss Fletcher and one of the maids talking in my dressing room.”

Robert did not say anything, and Jo was grateful he seemed to know she needed to gather courage to say the next part.

“They… they knew we had been together and I just…” She gulped again, not knowing how to continue.

“And you were embarrassed?” Robert asked in a gruff voice.

Jo nodded without looking at him. Her cheeks were flaming, and she desperately wanted the conversation over with.

She thought she heard Robert swallow a sigh but did not dare look at him. His hand was as clean now as it could be, yet she continued to wash it. She liked holding his large hand in hers and focusing on it, rather than his face.

“I don’t know what to do about it,” he told her at length. “It is inevitable that our staff will know about our intimate lives.”

“I know,” Jo whispered.

“We can be more discreet, but frankly I don’t want to. I want to have dinner with you in your lounge if it is what we prefer.”

Jo nodded as she dipped the cloth in the water again and turned Robert’s hand to clean his palm. She thought she felt him shiver slightly when she ran the cloth over the line that started under his smallest finger and extended across the palm to his index finger, but she might have imagined it.

“We should,” she agreed in a tight voice.

“But I am glad you told me. I will be more conscious of it. And also give you more time if you…”

“Thank you,” Jo interrupted and blurted: “There is something else though…”

She needed to say it now, otherwise she might never dare, but always wonder.

“I also heard the maids say that you are ‘besotted’ with Lady Egerton.”

Robert’s hand curled in her grip, and she felt his entire body tense. Jo released his hand and slowly sat up as she readied herself for whatever came next.

It would not change anything between them, she repeated as she met his green eyes.

Even though part of her knew that it would change everything if she heard him say that he was still in love with another. How could she give herself to him, if it was the case? How could she live with him every day, knowing he would rather she was another woman? How could she bear his children, knowing that he had wanted someone else to be their mother?

The thought made her look away from him. But she was afraid that he had already seen the hurt on her face.