which was now stained with Basil’s blood-and tore a strip from her chemise.
“Here,” she said, raising the linen to Heath’s face. “You gave your handkerchief away.”
To her puzzlement, Heath again pulled back abruptly, as if he couldn’t bear her touch. He took the scrap from her, however, and pressed it to his wound. “See to Eddowes, Lily. He needs your compassion more than I do.”
His cool tone took her aback. Lily regarded Heath in silence, trying to hide her own emotional turmoil: Gratitude that he had been willing to help her when she desperately needed him, without question or pause. Awe that he had risked his life to save her friend. Relief that he’d emerged relatively unharmed. Nerves from the danger they had faced. Pain from his coldness.
For the space of a heartbeat, she stood there awkwardly, wanting to say something more to Heath. But as soon as she nodded in agreement, he turned and followed his servants from the room, leaving Lily to stare after him, feeling strangely as if she had just been delivered a powerful blow to her chest somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.
Chapter Nineteen
– Lily to Fanny
At their wits’ end with worry, Fleur and Chantel were overjoyed to have Fanny home safely-and appalled by Basil’s trouncing. The elderly courtesans fussed over him even more than they fretted over Fanny, settling them both in their cozy sitting room and fortifying Basil with pillows, hot tea, and a liberal dose of brandy.
When Basil looked embarrassed by their coddling, Fanny assumed control of his nursing, bathing and tending his wounds and bandaging his right hand herself.
He endured her tender attentions with more fortitude, yet he still seemed dismayed by her concern. No doubt, Lily suspected, because he thought his physical injuries made him appear weak in Fanny’s eyes, even though she and the Cyprians praised his heroism numerous times.
Lily was also extremely proud of Basil, although she wasn’t quite as profuse in expressing her admiration just then; in part because her nerves were still unsettled from their brush with danger, her emotions still shaken after watching Heath risk his life for her sake. She badly wanted to see him again, to reassure herself that he was all right. Yet she knew there was an even greater reason for her present agitation. The truth was, she couldn’t bear the way they had parted.
To distract herself and Basil as well, Lily kept him company for the remainder of the afternoon, reading to him from Byron’s latest epic poem,
However, when he at last appeared at the boardinghouse that evening to check on Fanny and to report on O’Rourke’s arrest and incarceration, Lily had no chance to be alone with him, since Fanny asked to speak to him privately.
They left the sitting room together, and when Fanny returned, Heath was not with her.
“Lord Claybourne took his leave already?” Chantel asked, sounding disappointed. “But we wished to ask him to stay for dinner so we could properly thank him.”
“Yes, his lordship has gone,” Fanny answered. “He said to convey his apologies but he had business that required his attention.”
Lily felt her stomach sink further. She knew exactly why Heath had left without even saying farewell: because he was shunning her.
Not stopping to debate the wisdom of her actions, she sprang up from her seat to go after him.
There was no sign of him below in the entrance hall, Lily saw when she reached the first floor landing, so she quickly ran down the stairs and flung open the front door.
He was just climbing into his coach, she noted with relief. When she called to him, he froze for a long moment, before finally turning and walking slowly back toward her. Even from a distance she could tell that his face was completely shuttered, not an encouraging sign.
Lily hurried down the steps and along the sidewalk so that they met halfway, out of hearing of his coachman and footmen. When Heath halted before her, though, the sheer remoteness of his expression gave her a chill.
Lily stood gazing up at him helplessly, wondering what she could say to take that awful coldness from his eyes. At least the gash on his cheek didn’t seem too serious now that it had been cleaned and was no longer bleeding.
After a long moment she broke the strained silence by offering rather feebly, “You gave us no chance to thank you for saving Fanny.”
The humorless curl of his mouth resembled a grimace. “I have told you more than once, Lily, I do not want your gratitude.”
“Well, you have it. You saved my friend, and I am profoundly grateful to you.”
“Fanny has already thanked me adequately enough. Now, if you are quite finished…” With a curt bow, he took a step backward, as if preparing to turn away.
Dismay spearing through her, Lily stopped Heath by laying an imploring hand on his arm. “You are just leaving like this?”
“What reason do I have to stay, Lily?”
That sinking, tightening feeling in her stomach only intensified, especially when his voice dropped to a rough murmur. “It is clear we are at a total impasse, Lily. I cannot make you trust me. I cannot make you love me. So I am declaring an end to our courtship.”
When she mutely searched his face, Heath added with cold dispassion, “Come now, this is what you wanted all along. You should be glad I am giving you your wish.”
But she wasn’t glad at all! She didn’t want him walking away like this, severing even a chance of friendship between them. And the thought of possibly never seeing him again was more than she could bear. “Heath, please…I did not mean that we should-”
“
The finality in his tone roused a painful constriction in her chest. Then wordlessly, Heath turned and headed for his coach, once again leaving Lily to stare after him.
Yet this time the ache in her heart felt as if it might never go away.
Walking away from Lily just now was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, Heath reflected as his coach drove off. He hadn’t even wanted to come here tonight, let alone speak to her in private.
His frustration with Lily was balanced on a knife’s edge, and he wasn’t certain he could control his primitive urges. He wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. He wanted to make her accept his marriage proposal. He wanted to hold her and protect her and love her forever…
His reaction was driven by fear, Heath knew. The gut-deep fear that Lily might never give him the chance to love her as she deserved to be loved.
She believed that marriage was a prison for wives, that love was a destiny to be feared. Her irrational phobia frustrated the hell out of him because it was a fight he couldn’t win.
It wrenched him inside that Lily couldn’t let herself trust him. Which was why he had forced himself to walk away. If he continued making it easy for her to avoid the issue of marriage, she would have no reason to reevaluate her refusal.
He was taking the biggest gamble of his life, but he was determined to push her to decide what she truly wanted.
Remembering her huge dark eyes just now-the stricken look he’d seen there-gave him a measure of hope. Her dismay had seemed very real. And it was certainly possible that the adage about absence making the heart grow fonder might apply in her case.
But would his absence be enough to make her reconsider her answer?
He ardently wanted it to be so. Rescuing her friend this afternoon had only proved to Heath what he already
