“Your lips are very chapped. They are red and a bit swollen. Your skin on your cheeks seems a bit chapped, as well.”
From his whiskered jaw.
And her lips were still remarkably sensitive.
Gemma laid her hand against her face. “I feel a bit hot. There must be something in the air. If you will excuse me?”
She would have made her escape, except Mrs. Warbler wasn’t done with her. “Were you with Mr. Thurlowe this afternoon?”
Such an innocent question. Such a silly one.
He answered, “She was. I requested her help. Sometimes a woman will share with another woman what she is too shy to say to her doctor. As a healer, I thought Gemma would be great help, and she was.”
“Was she?” Mrs. Warbler echoed. “I mean, I didn’t know that you knew about childbirth, Gemma.”
“You doubt me, Mrs. Warbler?” Gemma asked.
“Oh, no. I am one of your greatest supporters. And we do need a midwife. We can’t rely on Mary.”
“Actually,” Gemma said, “Mr. Thurlowe was a most excellent male midwife.”
“Although I am not going to do it as a regular calling,” Ned was quick to add.
Mrs. Warbler studied them both for a moment, her suspicions obvious.
Gemma remained stoic, meeting her eye, refusing to feel guilty, and also knowing she should. What they’d done had been wrong, so very wrong . . .
The coachman interrupted the tension of the moment. “Are you ready to be driven to your house, Mr. Thurlowe?”
“Actually, I will walk from here,” Ned said.
“I’m obliged to drive you, sir,” the coachman answered. “The master was quite clear.”
“It’s a nice evening. The air will feel good,” Ned said. “You have done your duty.”
“Very well, sir.” The coach pulled away to the crossroad and made a huge circle before he drove past them on his way home. The three of them stood, watching. Gemma knew Mrs. Warbler’s mind was a hive of questions—questions that were not going to be answered.
Questions she needed time to consider.
She pretended to yawn, the action allowing her to withdraw her hand from his. “It’s been an eventful day.” That was an understatement. “If you will excuse me?” Before she left, she turned to Ned. “Thank you. You are a remarkable doctor.” And so much more.
Their eyes met. His were laughing. Did he not know the anger Mrs. Warbler could bring down upon them?
Gemma didn’t want to have regrets over what had happened in the coach. But now, back to her everyday life, she needed to sort things out.
Ned took her hint. “Good night, Gemma, Mrs. Warbler.” On those words, with a tip of his hat, he went walking down the road.
“He is feeling very good about himself,” Mrs. Warbler observed.
“As he should. He saved that baby.”
“Ah, the baby. What are the details about the baby?”
“Her name is Anne. It was a long labor.”
“Did she have hair?”
“Mrs. Warbler, I must say good night.” Gemma moved toward the door. “Please excuse me.”
“I’m disappointed you don’t have more information.”
“Perhaps on the morrow, Mrs. Warbler.” Gemma opened the door. She gave a little wave so as not to offend and then slipped inside.
The moment she closed the door, she fell back upon it. All was silent . . . and she felt very alone. Her body still reverberated with the passion of what she’d just done in the coach. She never wanted to let this feeling go, because it could not happen again. Her conscience and reality had returned.
Nothing could come of a liaison between her and Ned. “Clarissa Taylor.” She whispered the name. She had to remember Clarissa’s claim on him . . . and yet, she would not trade one second of having him inside her. Of being that close to him. Of knowing the taste of his skin or how well their bodies melded together.
“Do not feel guilty,” she warned herself. She pushed away from the door and walked across the darkening rooms to the kitchen, her footsteps echoing hollow.
Who knew if she could ever allow another man to touch her?
Carefully, she stoked the fire and added more wood. The flames sent a golden glow around the room. Tea would be nice. Would be settling—and that is when she finally let it hit her, how alone she was.
And yet, this aloneness was different than what she’d experienced with a husband who had ignored her. Or having to build a life for herself. This came from a sense of loss.
She was being silly. “You can’t love him.” Oh, but she could. She did.
“He’s not yours.” No, he wasn’t. Which made having him in her arms more poignant.
“I’m going to go mad,” she assured herself. You already are—madly in love with a man you admire.
“And can never have,” she reminded herself, her jaw beginning to ache from fighting back tears she had no right to shed. Instead, she reached for the kettle and saw that she needed more water.
Of course.
She picked up the pail to go fetch it but as she opened the door, a figure stepped into view. There he was, filling the doorway as if her arguments had conjured him.
She dropped the bucket. “Ned.”
His answer was to swoop her up in his arms. He walked her back into the kitchen, kicking the door shut. Their lips locked, his fingers already unlacing her dress.
Gemma didn’t question. She acted. She tugged on his shirt and pushed his jacket down his arms. He loosened her dress. It fell to the floor between them. Her breasts were already firm and hard and his breeches were full. She started to unbutton them. She’d have him right here, on the brick floor if necessary—and then that voice inside her said, No.
“We can’t do this.” She sounded crazed. She was crazed.
His hands started to come down on her shoulders. “Gemma—”
She caught his wrists, not trusting what would happen if she let him touch her further. “We can’t, Ned.”
Once she’d tried to deny Paul and he had been furious. She looked up into Ned’s eyes, begging him to understand. “We mustn’t. It will just be harder. And then what will happen the next time we are tempted?”
His jaw tightened. She braced herself, and then his weight shifted. He leaned back, away from her. She let him go. “Did the matrons corner you again?” He didn’t sound angry. Although it was hard to read what he was thinking.
“No, this is me. Ned, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have in the coach—”
“We shouldn’t have,” he corrected. “God help me, Gemma, do not apologize. I was as much a participant as you were.”
“It was wrong—”
“I love you. It can’t be wrong to want you in my arms, in my bed?”
“And I love you, too. I so love you.”
In the stillness of the kitchen, her words seemed to wrap around them. They loved . . . and they shouldn’t.
Her chest felt tight. She held herself very steady. She broke the silence. “When I first arrived in Maidenshop, I believed that love was some child’s tale told to women to make them line up and obey. I was tired and I was angry. I felt betrayed. I also didn’t like you very much.”