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‘I see.’ She looked away from him. ‘Well. I shall need some dresses. It is not that my brother has not been generous, but this gown was taken from Eleanor. She had gowns made for the Season. I do not.’
‘W
e shall remedy this.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It is nothing.’
‘I cannot tell if you’re angry with me,’ she said. ‘Am only I held to the standard of being perfectly honest, or does that apply to you as well?’
‘Only you,’ he said. She clearly did not see the amusement in this. ‘It is for your protection,’ he said further. ‘I must know what you need, what you want, for if I do not, how can I care for you to the extent that you must be cared for?’
‘How will I know anything if we do not speak with some level of honesty?’
‘I imagine we shall continue on together as we began.’
‘You are my brother’s friend. We do not often speak. Occasionally, you have brought me sweets.’
‘I do not see why that needs to change.’
She sighed. ‘Well...should I call you Philip?’
Something rang out, sharp and hard in his chest. He did not know how many years it had been since he’d heard that name spoken out loud.
‘No,’ he said.
‘We are married and...’
‘Briggs will do just fine. When it is not Your Grace.’ And how easy it was to imagine her calling him that from a position of supplication. On her knees.
Her pale breasts exposed completely...
He clenched his teeth.
‘And you will call me...’
‘Bea,’ he said. ‘Beatrice. As I always have. And I will bring you sweets and we can...’
‘And I can go on as I ever was, but with a new lord and master? You rather than Hugh?’
He did not wish to think of being her lord and master.
It heated his blood. Brought back that image he’d had of her in that virginal nightgown. His sacrificial virgin.
His disgust with himself in that moment went so deep as to be in his bones.
Was he quite so perverse that even knowing how he’d disgusted Serena he could still desire to take Beatrice in hand this way?
There was a reason he consorted only with prostitutes.
‘It is up to you, Beatrice, what you intend to make of this union.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘it is not. It is not up to me, it is more up to my brother than it will ever be to me.’
‘You were not to have a real marriage with your friend,’ he said, looking at her and ignoring the crackling between them, and it was there. Real. Like a banked flame.
He did not like it.
