“Of course not. Why on earth should I want to marry Inspector Fellows?”
“Because he’ll ruin you if you don’t.”
“Let him try.” Beth glared. “I’m not a hothouse flower to be sheltered; I know a thing or two of the world. My new fortune and Mrs. Barrington’s approval have done much for my standing—I’m no longer the girl from the workhouse, or even the poor vicar’s widow. The wealthy get away with much. It’s disgusting, really.”
She realized, when she ran out of breath, that Ian hadn’t registered a word. “I beg your pardon. I do run on sometimes, especially when I’m rattled. Mrs. Barrington often remarked on it.”
“And why the devil do you drag Mrs. Barrington into every conversation?”
Beth blinked. He sounded more himself. “I don’t know. I suppose she had great influence on me. And opinions. Many, many opinions.”
Ian didn’t answer. He reached to the windowsill and picked up the package, his strong fingers making short work of the paper. He opened a wooden box and stared into it, then lifted out a flat gold pin embossed with stylized curlicues.
“For your lapel,” Beth said. “I’m sure you have dozens of them, but I thought it was pretty.”
Ian continued to stare at it as though he’d never seen such a thing.
“I had it engraved, on the back.”
Ian turned the pin over, his eyes flickering as he read the inscription Beth had mulled over for so long in the shop.
“Put it on me,” he said.
Beth slid the pin through the cashmere with a trembling hand. His body was hard beneath his coat, and she let her fingers rest a moment on his chest.
“Do you forgive me?” she asked.
“No.”
Her heart beat faster. “I suppose I shouldn’t expect too much.”
“There is nothing to forgive.” Ian caught her hand in a crushing grip. “I thought you would leave Paris after you saw me in the park.”
“I can’t possibly. Your brother hasn’t given me drawing lessons yet.”
A line appeared between his brows. Beth amended quickly, “I was joking.”
His frown deepened. “Why did you stay?”
“I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
Ian’s gaze flicked past hers. “You saw.”
Beth remembered his nearly purple face, his hoarse curses, his hands in hard fists, his brother and Curry dragging him away.
“It stays away most of the time. But when I saw him touch you, my Beth, it rose like a fire. I frightened you.” “You did, rather.” But not in the way he meant. Beth’s father had been prone to violent rages when drunk. She’d run from him and cowered behind whatever would hide her small body until he’d slammed out of the house.
With Ian, she’d not wanted to flee. That he could have hurt Fellows she had no doubt, but she hadn’t been afraid Ian would hurt her. She’d known he wouldn’t. She’d been more afraid that he’d hurt himself or that a passing policeman would decide to arrest him.
Beth rested her cheek against the stiff white fabric of his shirtfront. “You told me not to protect you, but I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I don’t want you to lie for me.” His voice rumbled under her ear, overshadowing the strong beat of his heart. “Hart lies for me. Mac and Cam lie; Curry lies.” “Sounds like verbal conjugation. I lie; you lie; he, she, it lies....”
Ian fell silent, and she looked up. “I’m a very truthful person, Ian. I promise.”
He ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek. Beth felt an insane need to keep talking. “Those clouds are thick. It might rain.”
“Good. Then it will be too dark to paint, and Mac will send that bloody girl home.”
“He isn’t her lover, is he?” Beth put her ringers over her lips. “Oh, dear, I can’t stop asking questions. You don’t have to answer.”
“She’s not his lover.”
“Good.” She hesitated. “Are
“The pin says ‘in friendship.’”
“Only because I was too put off by the shopkeeper to have him engrave ‘to my love.’ Besides, Isabella was standing right next to me.”
Ian went silent for a long time, looking at her and avoiding her gaze at the same time. She saw his eyes flicker back and forth, restless, never wanting to settle. “I told you I can’t fall in love,” he said. “But you have.”
Her heart thumped. “Have I?”
“With your husband.”
So many people wanted to talk about Thomas Ackerley.
“I did. I loved him very much.”
“What was it like?” His words were so low she barely caught them. “Explain to me what loving feels like, Beth. I want to understand.”
“I don’t want to hear about divinity. I want to hear about flesh and bone. Is love like desire?”
“Some people think so.”
“But you don’t.”
Sweat trickled down Beth’s back, despite the clouds cutting the sun’s heat. The trouble with Ian Mackenzie’s questions was that he asked the unanswerable. And yet she should know how to answer—everyone should. But they couldn’t, because everyone simply
She warmed. “I must say, you are quite good for my pride. But when you don’t desire a woman, you feel nothing for her?”
“Nothing at all.”
Beth heaved a sigh. “And that, Ian Mackenzie, is why I said you’ll break my heart.”
His gaze strayed out the window to cloud-strewn Paris. “Wanting is not enough? Desire so strong you’ll do anything to fulfill it?”
“It’s lovely in the moment, but in the long view, 1 think, no.”
“In the asylum, I learned to take the short view.” She imagined a younger Ian, lanky and not yet grown into his man’s body, bewildered and alone. The bewildered boy reminded her of the girl who found herself abandoned at fifteen with predators roaming, waiting for her to become their victim. Even now, with a respectable name and a fortune, Beth never felt entirely safe.
“I admit that I, too, have learned to take the short view,” she said.
“You feel the wanting.” Ian took her fingers between his, pressing their palms together. “You felt it at the duchesse’s.” Her face heated. “Of course I felt it. You had me in that sitting room with my skirts up to my ears. How could I not?” “Do you want to feel it again?”
Excitement whispered through her. “If I were a lady, I’d protest that of course I don’t want to feel like that ever again. But I do, actually. Very much.”
