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‘Do not assume what I am prepared for. You, like everyone else, underestimate me.’
‘I do not underestimate you, but neither do I forget the reality of your health.’
‘Is it truly me you worry for? Or are you simply obeying my brother’s orders?’
He frowned. ‘I worry for you. And of course I respect what Kendal has asked of me...’
‘I know my brother made it clear you must watch out for me. But he is not here. And I am fine.’
‘I do not trust you to always make the best decision when it comes to your own needs,’ he said.
‘That is a shame,’ she said. ‘Because I do. And I should like it if even one person gave me the benefit of being treated like a woman. You have done so once,’ she said, her blue eyes meeting his, crackling with heat. ‘Is it not hypocritical to treat me only as a woman when it suits you, and to otherwise relegate me to the position of ward?’
‘Is it not hypocritical of you to ask for something and then attempt to use it against me?’
‘I have asked for one thing,’ she said. ‘With consistency. To be treated as if I know my own mind, and to be given the fre
edom that I feel I deserve. I did not act counter to those wishes last night. I did what I wanted.’
She wanted.
He knew exactly what she wanted.
He could give it to her.
‘It is time to go.’ Just as Briggs had known he would, William returned to them as if an internal timepiece had told him that they were nearing the moment Briggs had said they would leave.
He was grateful. Because he did not wish to continue this conversation. He felt perilously close to the edges of dreams he’d had years ago. That perhaps he was not so bent, he only had to find the woman who would decide to bend around him.
He could pay women to do so, but part of him had always desired...
The hunger he saw in Beatrice’s face.
And yet he could not. They could not.
* * *
With Alice and attendants, they got into the carriage.
It was not just the look of wonder on William’s face that Briggs found himself captivated by. But Beatrice’s.
He had forgotten what it was like to look around the world and see anything new, but everything was new to her.
The sights, the sounds, they were significant to her. Special. And it filled him with a deep sense of pride to be the person to have shown her.
And of course, it was unavoidable, he could not help but compare it to the pleasure that she had been shown last night. In his arms, she had fallen apart, and he had prevented her from splintering. He wanted to know if she had ever felt that manner of pleasure before. If she had found it with her own hand. He enjoyed that image very much.
Beatrice, laying on her bed, her hand between her thighs...
He wanted to know so many things, and he wanted to show her so much more, and yet, he knew that it was impossible.
Why? You said so yourself, there are many things that can be done without producing a child.
It was true. However, while he enjoyed games of self-control, there were limits. And while he believed himself to be a man of extreme control, and in fact enjoyed that as an aspect to his bed sport, eventually, he would need to be inside a woman. That was just how it worked. He was not a man who could forgo being inside a woman forever. And if he were to play with her physically, it was possible she would be hurt by his need to take his fulfilment with other women. And it was just best, easiest, if these things remained separate.
Is it not too late for that?
It was not too late. Not if he determined in himself that it wasn’t.
