Beauty Tempts the Beast (Sins for All Seasons #6) - Lorraine Heath Page 0,91
be an inconvenience for one of his captains. “I can probably arrange something.”
Thorne had winked at her. “It pays to have a brother-by-marriage with ships.”
After Thorne walked away, she’d asked, “How did you know the toucan was for Robin?”
“Because he’s always giving Robin animals. Tomorrow morning it will be a spaniel.”
The camaraderie among the siblings was unlike anything she’d ever known. They knew so much about each other. They’d exchanged stories, laughed, teased each other. They’d included the spouses. They’d included her.
What she had enjoyed most was watching Benedict’s interactions with the others. Mrs. Trewlove had told her that Finn had always been the most sensitive, Beast the most contemplative. All the times in the beginning when he’d merely watched her, she now realized was simply his way. While his siblings argued and debated, he merely listened, sorting things. When he did finally contribute, his words were usually met with, “Knew you’d have the answer.” Or, “Knew you could make them see sense.”
Observing their exchanges, she understood they’d shared secrets, sorrows, hurts, successes, and failures. They didn’t judge each other. They accepted each other as they were.
She kept running the entire evening through her mind, recounting conversations, reexamining moments that had made her laugh or smile or tear up. As long as she focused on the past, even if it was only a few hours past, she wasn’t reminded that Benedict was presently in the bedchamber adjoining hers.
“I saw a flash of panic on your face when I suggested everyone stay the night,” Gillie had told her, “so I thought you would be more comfortable sleeping in the bedchamber adjoining Beast’s. You can always ring for a servant, naturally, if you’re in need of anything, but I wanted you to have reassurance he’s near.”
In her parents’ home, bachelors slept in a wing separate from the one in which unmarried ladies slept. Never would they have been within easy reach of each other. Her mother would be appalled to know Althea had counted the steps from the bed to the door that led into his room, that she was now listening for any sound, any indication he was still awake. That she was hoping he might be on the other side straining to hear any sounds coming from her.
Perhaps it was all the wine now coursing through her veins or the love this family showered on each other or simply a need not to be alone on Christmas Eve—
She nearly laughed aloud at the realization she might be no different than the men who would be spending their night with Jewel, Hester, Lottie . . . men without families, men without someone to love them. Tonight she’d experienced something finer than what she’d always dreamed her future would hold. But she knew it could contain so much more.
If she was willing to take those eleven steps, knock on a door, and make a complicated mistake.
With his hands shoved beneath his head, Beast stared at the ceiling and cursed Gillie for the hundredth time.
Every time his errant gaze fell on the door, he thought, Three steps, four; that’s all it would take to be there.
It wasn’t as though each night, at some point before he finally managed to force sleep upon himself, he didn’t consider knocking on her door. But it was easier to resist the temptation when her bedchamber wasn’t right next to his, when he didn’t think he could smell the scent of gardenia—surely it was his imagination. Her fragrance couldn’t be slipping in beneath the door.
It had been a mistake to bring her here, to see how easily she fit in with his family, how right she looked sitting with his mum, how much he had enjoyed having her near, how much more special the moment when they’d given Robin their name had been because she’d shared it with him. Years from now when they looked back on it, when he recalled the tears in her eyes—
Except years from now they wouldn’t look back on it, they wouldn’t reminisce. It would be only him, alone. Because he couldn’t imagine another woman coming into his life whom he would want more than he wanted her—and if a person couldn’t have what he wanted most in the world, could he find happiness with less?
She didn’t want marriage. She wanted Society on her terms, notoriously, scandalously, infamously. Oh, certainly he could take her to Gillie’s balls and Fancy’s, but that wouldn’t be what she wanted most in the world. Could she find