Marrying Winterborne (The Ravenels #2) - Lisa Kleypas Page 0,73
her questioning silence, he continued reluctantly. “I never knew if her affection was real, or if it was included on the bill of sale. I don’t think she knew, either.”
“Did you want her to feel affection for you?”
He shook his head at once. Her hand smoothed over his chest and stomach, and the moment was so peaceful that he found himself telling her more than he’d intended. “I’ve had lovers, from time to time. Women who didn’t want to be kept, and sometimes liked a bit o’ rough.”
“A bit of rough?” Helen repeated quizzically.
“A lower-class sort,” he explained. “A rowdy in bed.”
Her hand paused on his chest. “But you’re gentle.”
Rhys was torn between amusement and shame as his mind recollected some of the more lurid episodes of his past. “I’m glad you think so, cariad.”
“And you’re not lower-class.” She began to trace invisible patterns on his torso again.
“The devil knows I’m not from the upper,” he said wryly. “‘Codfish aristocracy’ is what they call us. Men who’ve made a fortune in business, but are common-born.”
“Why codfish?”
“It used to refer to the rich merchants who settled the American colonies and made their money in the cod trade. Now it means any successful businessman.”
“Nouveau riche is another term,” Helen said. “It’s never used as a compliment, of course. But it should be. Being self-made is something to be admired.” As she felt his soundless chuckle, she insisted, “It is.”
Rhys turned his head to kiss her. “You’ve no need to flatter my vanity.”
“I’m not flattering you. I think you’re remarkable.”
Whether she really felt that way, or was merely playing the role of loyal spouse, her words smoothed over the rough-hewn, ragged places of his soul like some healing balm. God, he needed this, had always needed it. Her sleek young body pressed against his as she drew her hands over him tentatively. He lay still and let her explore him, satisfying her curiosity.
“Was there ever a woman you thought of marrying?” she asked.
Rhys hesitated, unwilling to have his past probed and exposed. But she was underneath his armor now. “There was a girl I fancied,” he admitted.
“What was her name?”
“Peggy Gilmore. Her father was a furniture-maker who supplied my store.” His mind sifted through unwanted memories, pulling out ghostly images, words, shades of feeling. “A pretty girl with green eyes. I didn’t court her—it never went that far.”
“Why not?”
“I knew that a good friend of mine, Ioan, was in love with her.”
Helen draped herself along his side, a slender leg hitching over one of his. “That’s a Welsh name, isn’t it?”
“Aye. Ioan’s family, the Crewes, lived on High Street, not far from my father’s shop. They made and sold fishing tackle. There was a giant stuffed salmon in the window.” He smiled slightly, remembering his fascination with the shop’s displays of taxidermied fish and reptiles. “Mr. Crewe talked my parents into letting me take penmanship lessons with Ioan two afternoons a week. He convinced them that it would help their business to have someone who could write a good legible hand. Years later, when I began to expand my store, I hired Ioan as the merchandise controller. A fine, honest man, he was, good as gold. I couldn’t blame Peggy for preferring him to me—I’d never have loved her the way he did.”
“Did they marry? Does he still work at the store?”
A dark feeling came over Rhys, as it always did when he thought about Ioan. He regretted having mentioned him, or Peggy—he didn’t want to let the past intrude on his time with Helen. “Let’s talk no more of it, cariad—it’s not a pretty story, and the telling of it brings out the worst in me.”
But Helen was intent on prying the information from him. “Did you have a falling-out?”
Rhys was irritably silent, responding with a single shake of his head. He thought Helen would retreat then. But he felt her lips press against his cheek, while one of her hands slid into his hair and lay lightly against his skull. The silent consolation, so unexpected, undermined him completely.
Baffled by his inability to withhold anything from her, he let out a sigh. “Ioan’s been dead these four years past.”
Helen was still and quiet as she absorbed the information. After a moment she kissed him again, this time on his chest. Over his heart. Damn it, he thought, realizing that he was going to tell her everything. He couldn’t put any distance between them when she did something like that.