The Suffragette Scandal (The Brothers Sinister) (41 page)

Roughly though they’d come together, her climax came slowly—not a sudden wave, but a slow, rolling gentleness, one that built until it overwhelmed her senses, taking over her. He came shortly after, thrusting hard, holding her in place against the wall as he did.

When he’d finished, he smiled. “God,” he rumbled. “It’s worth it. It’s all worth it, just for you.”

She couldn’t disagree.

He took her up to bed afterward.

Even that seemed odd and unfamiliar. She smiled at him as he helped her into her nightrail. She curled up in the bed. But she felt small in that vast expanse of linen. Even when he joined her, curling his body around her, all that empty, extra space surrounded them like hostile territory.

“We’ll make it work,” she told him. “If any two people can make this work, it will be us.”

He let out a breath, his hand slipping around her waist. “We will. But this isn’t what you wanted from your life.”

“There is some parity,” she told him. “I doubt you ever said to yourself, ‘I want nothing more than to marry a woman whose radical press garners death threats and arson attempts.’”

“A failure of imagination on my part.” He kissed her shoulder. “I had only to see you and know I wanted nothing else. You, on the other hand…”

“Everyone tempers their dreams over time, Edward. We’ll figure out the future tomorrow. For tonight…”

He let out a breath.

“For tonight,” Free said, “I finally want to have that conversation you promised me about how attractive I find your muscles.”

“Ah,” he rumbled against her chest. “Do you?”

She slid her hands down his side. “I do.”

And so she did.

A
FTER THEY’D FINISHED
the second round, after Free had fallen asleep by his side, Edward slid his arm around her. He could feel her chest rise and fall, slowly at first and then more slowly still.

It was so close to sweet that he could almost accept it as his future. So close, and yet so far.

Everyone tempers their dreams sometimes.

But not Free. He’d wanted to give her a thousand things. Sizing her dreams down to fit in his life had not been on his list. And yet that was what this all would mean, would it not? She’d live in this house, think about his tenants. Even if she moved her newspaper here, the estate would always make extra work for her, sapping her energy from the causes she loved.

Her breath evened out beside him, deepening, coming to a steady rhythm. The evening darkened from blue to purple to black.

“I don’t want you to compromise,” Edward said. “I want you unbowed.”

But Free was asleep and she didn’t even mutter in response.

“I love you,” Edward told her. “I want to give you your heart’s desire, not spend the rest of my life knowing that I stole your dreams from you.”

Still she didn’t move. Years with her stretched out in front of him—years of
almost,
years where she felt happiness with him nearly as great as if they’d never met. Years watching her look out the windows of this great big house, remembering what she’d once had.

This estate, this title, this life…for her, all of this would be a constant bruising, an eternal source of pain. He couldn’t do that to her.

Slowly, he drew himself from around her. Even more slowly, he stole from her bed.

He didn’t dare look back. He simply walked out the door and down the stairs before he lost his nerve.

T
HE SOUND OF BIRDS
pulled Free from sleep. Happy summer chirps filtered through the open window. She woke, opening her eyes to a spill of sunlight across the carpet. It was still scarcely morning; dawn came early in summer.

Now, that early morning light illuminated the pattern of some rich carpet, imported from who knew where. Hand-carved mahogany furniture stood against the walls. The window framed the rolling hills of an estate that she didn’t want but was going to have anyway. After last night, though… After last night, that feeling of disconnectedness had faded to a dull ache. In another month, she might even be satisfied.

The one consolation—the only thing that made it worthwhile—was that they would be doing this together. She shut her eyes and turned in bed, reaching for her husband.

She found cold sheets instead. That woke her right up. She got out of bed and fumbled for her robe.

He wasn’t in the dressing room, nor in the library next to it, nor in… She didn’t have names for all the rooms that she looked in. Why did anyone need
three
sitting rooms, all in different colors?

Where was he? Why hadn’t he woken her up? He wouldn’t leave her entirely, she told herself. She wouldn’t panic. The thud of her heart had nothing to do with fear.

She rushed down a stairway wide enough to host a stampeding herd of cattle. In the normal course of things, she might have been able to ask the servants where he’d gone. But there were no servants—except in the stables. Surely they’d have seen him there, if he’d left.

She dashed outside. The dew on the grass soaked into her slippers. But as she came up on the stables, she heard voices—just audible over a loud, soughing sound. She heard
Edward.
She hadn’t realized how she’d worried until she staggered in relief, knowing that he hadn’t disappeared.

“Just like that,” he was saying. “Yes, we’ll need it a bit hotter than you’d use for a shoe. Wait until it glows orange.”

That heavy soughing sound repeated, and now she recognized it as a bellows working. He’d showed her a bit of that yesterday. She dashed up to the stables, turned the corner to the farrier’s station.

Edward was holding a thin piece of metal over a fire. He’d donned thick leather gloves, removed his coat, and rolled up his sleeves. He turned the iron in his hand, slowly, with great precision. Free found herself unable to breathe at the sight of him—at those lovely muscles she’d admired up close last night, displayed to such lovely advantage, at the intent concentration on his face.

The metal went from dark gray to dull red, coming up on orange. He picked up a tool—something that looked like a pincers—and then tapped the metal with it, shaping it with light, gentle touches, coaxing it into a graceful curve.

“There,” he said to the man working the bellows. “Now to heat the end. This will have to be damned hot, Jeffreys—work the bellows hard, until the iron is almost yellow.” He held the tip in the fire, watching. “Yes. Precisely like that.”

Before she could understand what was happening, he’d set something on the table, something small and shiny. He touched the heated end of his iron to that thing, holding it in place for a moment.

“There. That’s the last one, Jeffreys.”

The man left off working the bellows. “You know your way around a forge, sir. My lord, I mean.”

Edward’s nose wrinkled at that last, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he crossed to a barrel. He slipped the thin metal inside and steam rose in clouds.

“There.” He pulled it out, turning it from side to side, considering.

She’d not had a good view of the thing before. She could see it now. It looked like a flower. A flower made of iron, the base sporting graceful leaves, the stem rising up in a gentle curve, leaning into some unseen wind. It terminated in what looked like a tiny iron bell.

No. She leaned forward squinting. That wasn’t a bell.

He nodded at his handiwork and then turned around. That was when he saw her. His eyes widened slightly. “Free.”

“Edward.” She looked at him. “You awoke early.”

“Not precisely.” He gave her a small, tired smile. “I’ve not slept yet. Now shut your eyes, Free. And Jeffreys—you can take yourself off. Thank you for your help.” Edward jerked his head, and the man who’d worked the bellows smiled slightly, bowed, and slipped away.

“Shut my eyes?” Free didn’t comply. She looked around instead. “Why would I—” And then she stopped, her breath taken away. Because there were
others
—an entire pail of these plants, stems rising gracefully to belled flowers. It was like looking at a meadow of metal flowers waving in some spring breeze.

She took a step forward.

No, those really weren’t bells. They were thimbles—he must have taken a handful from the seamstress’s room. He’d made all these flowers from those.

She could suddenly feel the pebbles beneath her slippers, hard, gritty little dots pressing into the soles of her feet.

“Last night,” he said, “after you fell asleep, I kept thinking. Of all the things you said, of all the things I know you want. You told me that everyone tempered their dreams over time—eventually.”

“I did.” What this had to do with a sheaf of iron bluebells, she didn’t know.

“You told me you wanted to believe in me,” he said. “And—here’s the thing, Free. What I remembered most was that day in your office. The day I fell completely, irrevocably, head over heels in love with you. I was a complete ass to you, and I told you that you were trying to drain the Thames with thimbles.”

She smiled faintly. “I remember that.”

“You told me I’d had it wrong. That you weren’t trying to drain the Thames—you were watering a garden, drop by drop. You made me think, for the first time in my life, that there was a way to win against all of this.” He stretched his arms wide.

Her throat felt scratchy.

“So that’s what I was doing last night.” His voice was low. “You told me to believe in myself, and so I made you a garden of thimbles. A promise, Free, that we won’t compromise. That our marriage won’t be
almost
what you wished for, that your dreams will not be tempered. That I will not be the one who holds you back, but the man who carries thimbles to water your garden when your arms tire.”

A breeze came up, swirling between them, and the stems danced in the wind, the flowers clanging merrily together.

“That’s how I thought I could make it up to you,” he said. “Drop by drop. Thimble by thimble. But about halfway through making these, I knew it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t ask you to become another viscountess. I’d be miserable; you’d be miserable. And you’d do a bang-up job, but there are a hundred women who could be viscountesses. There’s only one of you.”

She was feeling almost hazy. Her knees felt weak. But he was the one who took her hand. “So I’m asking you, Free.
Don’t
be my viscountess. Don’t throw my parties. Don’t run my estate. Let me be your thimble carrier. Be
you,
the most wonderful woman I have ever known. I’ll be the one making sure that you never run out of water.”

“How?” Her voice cracked. “You have a seat in Parliament, an estate that needs care. Your wife needs to make sure that…”

“No,” he said softly.

“I mean, it, Edward. I have no patience for those lords who neglect their duties.”

He came up to her and touched her cheek. “The lovely thing about being a complete and utter scoundrel is that I don’t have to accept everyone else’s reality. I had this idea last night. This strange, incomprehensible idea. Why do
we
have to make decisions about the estate? I’ve spent the last seven years of my life blackmailing people and forging letters. I know nothing of estate management.”

“You could learn.”

“Why should I? Neither of us want this. Why should we change our entire lives when there are people who already know this place better than I ever would? Let them run it.”

Free blinked. “Who do you mean?”

“All the land I showed you yesterday? Those hundreds of tenants, all the people in town who rely on the estate? They know what they need, and they surely don’t need us to explain it to them. Let them decide how to manage this all. It’s their life. Imagine what would happen if we simply got out of the way.”

Free let out a breath. She’d been trying to figure it all out—how to have
this
, and have her newspaper as well. It…it might be possible.

“Take this house, for instance,” he said. “We don’t want it. So why not find a better way to use the funds to keep it open? Ask the tenants what they’d want. Maybe they’ll choose to rent it out. Maybe they’ll convert it to a hospital or a school.”

“You’re right,” Free said slowly. “Would we choose a board of tenants, then?”