Tempting the Bride - By Sherry Thomas Page 0,53
my inattentiveness.”
He’d asked himself many times, in pique and in despair, why he loved this one infuriatingly unreceptive woman. He could not remember now why he’d ever doubted. “You like the murals, then?”
“Yes.” She broke away to admire them again. “I love them. I have never seen anything so beautiful.”
He watched her hand glide gently over the world he’d painstakingly created for her. “Then that’s all that matters.”
Helena could not quite understand the pinched sensation in her chest.
She enjoyed the sight, the sound, the smell, and the feel of her husband. She enjoyed his company. And she enjoyed being the object of his affection. Why then was she not beaming broadly? Why did she feel as close to tears as she did to laughter?
“Would you like to see the books you’ve published?” asked Hastings.
“You have them here?”
“Of course.”
So many of her questions were answered with “of course,” as if the alternative were unthinkable. As if this were the only possible path for him to have taken in life. As if she were his only possible path.
They walked down the stairs arm in arm, with her glancing at him every other second. The sight of his spectacular profile only caused her feelings to grow more unruly, a chaos of fierce, sweet pain.
His study was everything a study ought to be: bookshelves reaching to the ceiling along every wall, a comfortable corner set up for reading, and a pervasive fragrance of leather binding and book dust.
He took out a key from a large desk before the windows and opened a cabinet, the doors of which had been inset with panes of frosted glass. The cabinet contained some forty, forty-five volumes.
An indescribable joy overtook her—this was her life’s work—until she began to examine the spines for the titles.
“The books on the bottom are the vanity projects that you charge to publish,” he explained. “The books in the middle are those you publish primarily for their commercial appeal. And those on top are the ones you felt driven to bring out.”
“Oh good,” she said, relieved. “All these spiritualist manuals in the middle, I was beginning to fear I’d taken a fancy to séances. Do they sell well?”
“According to you, they do.”
She inspected the books on the top shelf. The ones having to do with helping women obtain employment and education she certainly endorsed, but some of the other titles baffled her. “Are you sure these haven’t been misplaced? I am driven to produce volumes of history on East Anglia? Or did I develop an all-encompassing love of that region at some point during my forgotten years?”
“No, but you did become a great friend to the author of these works.”
There was a tightness to his voice. She glanced at him curiously, then pulled out one of the volumes. Few expenses had been spared in the production. The volume was bound in fine leather, the title gilt-embossed, the pages edged in gold.
“A.G.F. Martin.” She read the name of the author. “I don’t remember him—assuming it is a he.”
At the sound of a carriage coming to a stop before the house, he walked to the window and looked out. “Mr. Martin was a classmate of mine at Christ Church. I introduced the two of you—brought him to Henley Park when Fitz and his wife gave their first country house party.”
He did sound odd. She glanced at him. “You don’t like him?”
He recoiled, as if something unspeakably gruesome took place on the street outside.
“What’s the matter?”
He breathed heavily, as if he’d been running from a gang of murdering thieves. “We have a caller.”
Had the accepted hours for visiting changed so much during her absence of memory? “It’s late. We are not obliged to receive this caller, are we?”
His expression was quite wild, but his words rang with certainty. “We are. Or you are, at least. He is your author and your friend.”
A footman entered. “Mr. Andrew Martin to see you, Lady Hastings. Are you at home to him?”
She looked at her husband. “The same Mr. A.G.F. Martin?”
He turned to the footman. “You may show Mr. Martin here in five minutes.”
“Why make him wait that long?”
His answer was another kiss—this time one that would have made for a proper first kiss. It felt like speaking, almost, to kiss this way, syllables turned into contact of lips. The movement of his lips and tongue said that he adored and cherished her, that he could kiss her like this forever and never stop.
But he did stop. He rubbed her lips with