All Dressed in White by Charis Michaels

Author:Charis Michaels
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-08-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Joseph forced himself to wait a full day before initiating some future contact with his wife.

Not only was he uncertain that Tessa wanted to see him (and if so, in what vein), he needed a full day to recover from Vauxhall Gardens.

The twenty minutes that she was lost had taken years off his life. Icy fear thudded through his veins long after he’d followed her carriage home that night. For decades, Vauxhall Gardens had played dark, shadowy host to every manner of shady assignation. The moment he’d rushed into the pergola to find her ringed by a half circle of drunken louts made him want to rip the vine from the canopy and strangle each man. He thrummed with violence, but the situation wanted control and stealth, and every fight he’d ever fought had been brought to bear in those moments. He’d been outnumbered four to one and his first priority had been Tessa.

Looking back, he marveled that he’d allowed the men to go, to simply fade into the darkness unaccounted for, but Tessa had required him more.

In that moment, he met yet another side of Tessa he’d not known. Terrified, guilt-ridden, nearly inconsolable. He couldn’t stop thinking about her response. There was no question she’d been frightened, and this alone was enough to trouble him, but what bothered him more were her tearful ramblings. She seemed to believe that she’d somehow invited their attention, that vanity was to blame.

It made no sense. She’d looked beautiful that night, colorful and happy and herself—or at least more like the self she’d presented in Berymede. She’d seemed not just pretty but comfortable, he’d thought. Natural.

She’d eventually found some calm, but still she had clung to him, keeping close to his side far more than she had during the spirited, early hours that she’d enjoyed in the park.

Despite her distress, it was impossible to deny that he savored the feel of her in his arms. Like the selfish blackguard he was, he’d tried to memorize the fierce strength in her small hands, the softness of her head beneath his chin, the outline of her perfect ear pressed against his chest. He’d waited so many days to touch her. He’d worried for months that he would never touch her again. But that night, she’d clawed to get closer. His heart had been perforated with piercings, prick after prick after prick.

After the requisite day and night, Joseph had settled on a generic request: that he might spend some time in Belgravia with her and the baby and then, if possible, he might squire her around town in his phaeton.

As added incentive, he mentioned a potential stop in the offices of the buyer for the guano haul. Tessa had seen the cargo brought to port, but he wasn’t sure if she learned how the fertilizer reached the buyers.

The invitation he sent her was brief and general, and he was careful to make no mention of what he really intended, which was to show her his house.

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