She grinned at him from around a mouthful of pie. “I know this pie. We are old friends. There is no resisting it. Or any of Gladys’s pies, for that matter. You should taste her apricot pie. It’s divine.”
His gaze scanned her face closely. “You seem to be feeling better about tonight.”
“Do I?” Interesting. Especially since she only felt worse after her encounter with Grace.
He nodded. “Yes. Did you and your sister make amends?”
Mercy snorted. “Certainly not. Quite the opposite. She is not in a talking mood. At least not with me. It will be some time before I am forgiven, I fear.”
He nodded in sympathy. “Hard decisions are never met with gratitude.”
“Hard decisions are never met with gratitude,” she echoed, rolling that around in her mind. She angled her head, absorbing that . . . and concluding it felt accurate. “No, they are not. That is very true and very wise. Hard decisions are indeed not met with gratitude or understanding.” She took another bite of pie. “Tonight she claimed to hate me.”
He made a hissing sound. “She is young. She doesn’t mean it. Whatever she’s feeling right now, this very night, will change. Like a puff of smoke, it will fade away. Your sister will feel and think entirely differently in a fortnight from now. Hell, a year from now she won’t even remember any of this.”
Mercy hoped fervently that was true.
“Have many sisters, do you?”
“No. Not a one, but I do know what it is like to be young and an idiot. Or is it . . . a young idiot?” He shrugged as though they were one and the same.
Her lips twitched.
He continued, “Someday your sister will look back on all of this and shake her head . . . if she even remembers it with any great amount of detail.”
She released a breath. “I am not so certain, but I will take heart in your words and try to believe that.”
“It’s true. You shall see in time.”
She lowered her fork to the plate, idly squishing the tines against a blackberry until the fruit burst in an explosion of dark juice.
“I hope so,” she whispered and the words suddenly felt too thick in her mouth. A lump formed in her throat and her next breath was suddenly choking her. She dropped the fork with a clatter. Her cheeks burned hot as a sob broke loose from her lips. Her sister was there, in her mind’s eye, her voice as sharp and cutting as it had been in her bedchamber. I hate you. Mercy had held herself together before, in the face of that, but now it seemed she had no control over herself.
“Oh, no,” he murmured beside her, one of his big hands coming down on her shoulder. “Don’t do that. Everything will be well. You will see.”
His comforting words were almost too much. They were kind and tender and they undid her.
She twisted around in her seat and fell against him, her arms reaching up to loop around his neck.
He folded her into his arms and pulled her in close. She went willingly, settling into him, fitting against him and sighing in delight at the warm wall of his chest against her.
It was just a hug. An embrace. She told herself the lie.
“There, there,” he soothed rather expertly, looking down at her intently. She felt stripped bare under his scrutiny and the sensation was not entirely unwelcome.
She felt the moisture on her face then. The hot glide of her tears. Oh, no. Blast it. She hated that she was crying in front of him. It was so mortifying that he should see her like this . . . so vulnerable and weak.
His arms relaxed around her without entirely releasing her, which was a relief. She did not want him to let her go. She wanted his arms to stay caged around her, as troubling and impractical as that was. She did not want practicality. She wanted this. She wanted to stay put, right here, right now, feeling good in his arms forever. Forever. The word jarred her. That was a bold and unrealistic wish. As bold and unrealistic as the other things she wanted.
She wanted searing kisses and the heavy press of his body over hers and the slick glide of skin against skin . . . and his hardness. His hardness filling her again.
She wanted him.
She released a breathy sigh and snuggled in closer to him.
His big hands slid over her tear-coated cheeks, holding her face tenderly up to his. He spoke her name, a dark little whisper flowing over her parted mouth.
His hands moved down her shoulders and around to her back, brushing up and down her spine in rhythmic strokes that she tried to pretend did not affect her—did not awaken those feelings inside her that she had been trying to bury ever since she left him in London, ever since they had gone at each other in the orangery.
Perhaps such a thing was impossible? Perhaps when you spent the night with someone—in that person’s bed, in that person’s arms—it was impossible to ever pretend otherwise? Impossible to feign indifference to the eddying tremors of sensation running through your body.
A dried-up spinster, Grace had called her.
There was some truth in that, Mercy realized. That was why she had been so susceptible, so willing to engage in a dalliance when she was in London. She was hungry for intimacy of the physical variety with another person.
Not just any dalliance either. A dalliance with Silas Masters. If one was to dally, it should be with someone like him. Someone extraordinary. Someone whose big callused hands spanned her back now, singeing her through the fabric of her dress. Someone whose butterfly gusts of breath felt warm and arousing on the side of her face, so close to her ear that she heard the cadence of his breathing like the rush of a second heartbeat, working in rhythm with her own.
She did not know the precise moment the air shifted. The precise moment that hand felt less comforting and more sensual in nature.
His hand traveled up her back, reaching her nape beneath the heavy fall of her hair. His fingers curled around her neck, his palm pressing flush against the bump of her vertebra, exerting more pressure as his fingertips played at the skin on the side of her throat.
She could summon no words to speak. She knew she should disengage. He had kindly offered his solace, obligingly held her when she flung herself against him, but she could not continue to do this. This was something more than comfort. Something she was not entitled to have. He was not hers. This could not last.
Pull away.
She moistened her lips, her eyes fluttering shut as the velvety pads of his fingers started a rhythmic stroking.
Easier said than done.
She relaxed, arching her throat to the side to grant him better access. Another inhale and she had the full fragrance of him. The rich aroma of his masculine scent: freshly laundered garments, leather and a whiff of something else. Whiskey from earlier tonight perhaps.
His arms around her felt so strong and enveloping—as though he could hold and keep all of her burdens, as though he could carry the entire weight of the world in their breadth.
For so long she had carried the bulk of it all, held her family up—admittedly not successfully at times. Especially recently. Recently she felt she was failing.
It felt nice. This felt nice.
It was a real indulgence to be able to lower her guard and lean on someone else for a change.
She exhaled, her whole body easing, a bow released, a line let go.
Mercy slumped, fell heavier against him, letting his bigger, stronger body prop her up. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t tear herself away from this—she didn’t want to.