Alas, My Love by Edith Layton

Author:Edith Layton
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-03-05T13:18:45+00:00

She didn’t.

He came so close she let her eyelashes flutter down, because she couldn’t keep her eyes focused on him. That was what she told herself as she waited for his kiss.

But nothing happened. When her eyes flew open again she saw surprise in his. He dropped her hands, and stepped back.

“I’m making it worse,” he muttered angrily, “staying here with you, alone. God, I do it, and I know it, and I keep doing it.” His hands were fists at his sides. “I really must be as bad as Tremellyn thinks. I’m sorry.”

He turned to leave.

She couldn’t let him go like this, hating himself, blaming himself. He was what he was. But none of it was a crime, or at least, one he hadn’t paid for. “Wait!” she said. “You never said what I was doing.”

He turned back with a puzzled frown.

“You said you were looking at me, and Grace at young Toby, and Pascoe at you. But what about me?” Her mouth twisted. “If you were watching me, you must have seen who I was looking at.”

“Yes,” he said. “That makes me feel worse, because it reminds me of what a fool I was.”

“You were right to ignore me,” she said. “And there’s nothing wrong with a man trying to improve himself. That’s what everyone does. Marrying Grace would have established you here. Or at least, as much as anyone not born here can ever be. But me? I have nothing but whatever Mr. Tremellyn decides to give me, and everyone knows it. Why should you have ever considered me for a wife? And what else could you have considered me for?”

She shook her head. “You know that answer as well as I do: nothing at all. And a fellow can only keep company with a respectable woman if he has respectable plans for her. Most of us here have known each other all our lives. But even here a man can’t spend time alone with a single female without being thought to be trying for marriage. There are no such things as friendships among young unmarried people of any quality. You couldn’t court me, and whatever you once were, you’re certainly gentleman enough not to have thought of me as anything else.”

He reached her in one long stride, and gripped her hands again, his eyes blazing with anger. “No. I’m not, I was not, and I can’t be a gentleman, understand? I wanted you every way you can imagine, and a lot more you can’t, because you’re a lady even if you weren’t born one. I just knew what I couldn’t get away with.” His lips curled. “We old lags are very good at judging risk. So I’m even less of a gentleman than you thought, and you’re well rid of me.”

It was the right thing to say, and it made him feel both better and worse, but he couldn’t seem to let go of her hands.

She stood very still, and then closed her hands over his.

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