“G-Grace,” she stammered, the color only deepening in her cheeks. “Please. It is not like that between Mr. Masters and myself—”
“Rubbish.” Grace shook her head in dismissal of her sister’s objections, still holding Silas’s gaze. “I know you will do right by my sister. Won’t you, Mr. Masters?”
They stared at each other, ignoring the embarrassed sputterings coming from Mercy.
“Yes,” he answered, meaning every bit of what he was saying.
It was not so different from what he had said from the start to Mercy—when he had first arrived at her home. “I will do only right by your sister, Miss Kittinger.”
That had always been the plan. To do right by Mercy Kittinger and any offspring that might result from their indiscretion. Or rather, indiscretions. Because the more time he spent with her, it was clear that the two of them were destined for future indiscretions with each other.
Currently, Mercy stared at him in wide-eyed dismay, but she knew it, too. She felt it just as he did. The pull. She had remarked on it before. The heat between them, she had called it. If anything, it had only gotten hotter.
Of course, Grace thought he was an honorable man. In her mind, “doing right” meant marriage. He had not offered marriage to Mercy Kittinger, but perhaps he should.
Perhaps. He. Should.
He marveled that the thought had even entered his mind. He had never considered matrimony. In fact, he had eschewed it. He had never witnessed a happy union in his life, and he did not intend to inflict that unhappiness on himself or any woman. Except here he was considering that very thing with Mercy Kittinger. A woman who had duped him, seduced him and stolen from him.
And yet he liked her. He wanted her. He craved her.
Grace nodded in satisfaction at his promise, a contented smile on her face. “I thought as much.” Her composure regained, she continued, “Now. How about that dinner? Let us order a feast. I am famished.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The three of them took a surprisingly delicious and hearty dinner of roasted pheasant, freshly baked bread and an array of vegetables in front of a low crackling fire in the room’s hearth. Only a day’s ride north from Shropshire, but it was decidedly chillier—especially now that the sun had gone down. For dessert, they all enjoyed an apricot pudding in relative silence, the pop and crumble of burning wood and the howl of the wind outside the only noise.
“What now?” Grace asked as she licked the last bit of pudding from her spoon. “When we get back? Will I be . . . ruined?” She lowered her spoon to her bowl with a careful, bracing breath, as though preparing for the worst of news.
“I will get to Blankenship first,” Silas vowed, the words emerging tightly from his throat. He would have to call upon every bit of his restraint when dealing with that bastard. “As long as he does not carry tales, and I shall see that he does not, no one should know of your little . . . misadventure.”
Grace considered this for a moment and then seemed to accept what he said as true. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
“Thank you,” Mercy added, her gaze peering deeply at him, her brown eyes bright with an excess of unspoken words. She settled for: “Thank you for everything.”
Silas nodded, uncomfortable under her grateful regard. She was looking at him like he was a saint—a magnanimous prince. He was not that, and no one would ever hold that opinion. At least no one back in London. No one in the life he led separate from this one. The life he needed to get back to because this was clearly not real. He was playing house with Mercy Kittinger. No more than that. This was simply a game. Reality waited him.
He stood to take his leave, announcing that he would let them know downstairs to come and collect their trays. “Do you need anything else for the evening, ladies?”
“No, thank you,” Mercy murmured.
“It’s been a long day.” Grace sighed and rubbed at her forehead tiredly. “I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
“Well, get your rest. I’ll see you in the morning.” He spoke to both of them, but his gaze was trained on Mercy. Just as everything in him was fixed on Mercy.
She sat in her chair, her hands neatly folded in her lap—the very vision of demure womanhood, and he wanted to wreck that image. He wanted her without the trappings of modesty. He wanted her naked and writhing under him. Or as she was in London, wild and unrestrained, riding atop him, taking her pleasure for herself.
The chit was in his blood. He wanted her. It was a disconcerting truth.
With a slow blink, he managed to tear himself away and depart the room. He lingered outside the door for a moment, waiting for the sound of the bolt to drop into place, sealing them in. It fell with a clank.
Satisfied that they were safe and settled for the night, he descended the steps to ask the staff to come and fetch their plates.
Grace had not been exaggerating. She fell asleep almost the instant her head hit the pillow, her soft snores a gentle cadence on the air.
For Mercy, sleep was not so simple. She lay on her side, her hand tucked beneath her cheek, staring at the door. They’d bolted it after Silas left them for the night, but she was well aware that he was only feet away, just on the other side of their room in his own room. A mere wall separated them.
She forced her gaze off the door onto her slumbering sister. She was glad she could sleep. She needed the rest. Tomorrow would be another taxing day in the saddle.
Mercy, however, needed something else besides sleep. Time was running out. Silas would not be with them much longer. There would not be many opportunities left.
She flung back the counterpane and slipped from the bed. Turning, she made certain that her sister was still snug beneath the covers, snoring gently, and then located the key to the room. She had no intention of leaving her sister vulnerable in an unlocked room. What if that blackguard, Blankenship, returned? Or some other stranger?
She quietly locked their room, and then moved to stand before Silas’s door. Mercy lifted her hand to knock, and then paused, her fist poised midair. She bit her lip, debating whether or not to go ahead and do this. There would be no coming back if she did.
What had happened in London had been necessary. If it happened again when it was not necessary. Then that meant she was well and truly infatuated. Perhaps even more. Perhaps this went deeper than that.
Even though her mind shied from thinking it, it was there already. The glaring truth. She was in love with the man, and if she went to him tonight she would be lost.
Shaking her head, she lowered her hand and started turning away. She couldn’t . . .
It might be your last chance.
She stopped. Squaring her shoulders, Mercy turned back to face the door and lifted her hand once more, but she did not knock. It felt too . . . too.
Shaking her head yet again, she dropped her hand to her side and inched back several steps from the temptation of that door—and the man she knew to be on the other side of it.
A sudden burst of raucous laughter from a few rooms down startled her and had her looking in that direction. Returning her gaze to Silas’s door again, sanity had reasserted itself.
What was she doing? This could go nowhere. And what if her sister woke in the middle of the night looking for her?