He allowed himself to imagine it—Freddy making his house warm and rosy with ill-knit doilies on every surface. The girls’ shrieks and running steps echoing down the halls. He’d get them their own ponies and house them in the mews, tell them silly stories at bedtime, Freddy at his side.
Then, when they shut the bedroom door on two drowsy little girls, he’d snake an arm around her waist and drop a kiss to her temple, then drag her down the hall to their bedroom where he’d love her until the blazing fire in the grate became naught more than ash-covered coals, gray yet glowing.
She wanted a simple easy affair. He wanted more. She would never allow it. Would she? If she did allow it, desire it as he did, was he ready to do what he must to secure her, to secure a life together as long as it would be brilliant?
Could he give up a life of danger, a life he loved, a life that was killing him, to make a safe space for her to call home?
Eleven
The amphitheatre seemed like a tomb without the adoring crowds. The gas lamps flickered low and hazy, as if they were drowsy from a night’s worth of excitement. Freddy felt drowsy, too, as she joined Grant in the center of the dusty arena. The final show of the evening had been perfect, and after everyone, even Mr. Garrison, had left the building for the night, Grant had given her entrance.
Together, they paced the perimeter of the arena in a slow circle to view it all from this new angle. He knit their fingers together into a hard-woven pattern that fluttered the pulses at their wrists close and warm.
She unwound them, took a step away. “It’s like a … mausoleum.” She rubbed her hand up and down the other arm, the thrum of fear at the base of her skull telling her to put distance between them. If she could not keep the wicked widow’s code of detachment, she would have to end their affair, and that thought felt like ice shards spiking into her skin. Because he’d pinned her to a wall in the hall outside the girls’ bedroom, and she’d loved it. He’d made sure she knew she was his and his alone, and she’d loved it. And he’d made her girls laugh and tucked them in, and—ah—she’d loved that most of all.
For someone who insisted she was still detached, the word love sure came readily when she thought of him.
The best reason of all to force a distance. Or perhaps a reason to enjoy him while she could, before she must end things for good. That though found a home in her chest and curled up warm, purring.
“I find it lovely.” He trailed fingers down her back. “It’s times like this, when I’m the only person here”—he walked to the center of the arena, held his arms wide, and moved in a slow circle—“that I remember how much I love it.”
“Remember? You do not like performing any longer?”
“The aches and pains in my shoulders and knees make me forget sometimes, but I do love it. It is exhilarating. When you don’t have a family and all the world seems to love you, the adoration makes up for the loneliness. Just a bit.”
“Perhaps I should perform,” she said, “and then I would feel like I have a family, too.” She bit her lip and hung her head. “That was not right of me. I do have a family. My girls, Max, his sisters, Nora. I am grateful to have them. I love them.”
“I think it’s possible to have the entire world at your disposal and still feel lonely.” He spoke from experience. A certain steel-cold quality in his voice told her so.
She lifted her chin then, and their gazes met. Snagged. They understood one another perhaps in ways others never would. How odd that a man like him, in the spotlight and deserving of it, would feel like a man in the shadows, would feel like … her sometimes. Her heart thumped. It grew too large, and she ducked her head, ripped the gaze they shared in two.
He cleared his throat and walked out of the arena through the backstage and toward the courtyard.
She rushed after him. “Where are you going? Are we going back to your townhouse?”
“Not yet. To the stables.”
“But why?” She came up beside him, lifted her face to him.
He stopped and, placing his fingers beneath her chin, bent low and kissed her soundly.
It did things to her, made her feel anchored, as if this moment out of all the moments she’d ever lived through, it was the only right one. Every moment with him the only right one.
“I’d like to give you a taste of performance,” he said, lifting from the kiss with closed eyes and a dreamy smile.
“Oh. No need. I am not made for such things. I have no talent.”
He charged into the stables and found Nora’s horse. “Exquisite is a gentle yet talented mare who will treat you right, Freddy darling. She’ll bring out your talents, too. And despite your doubts, they are simmering beneath the surface of your lickable skin. I see them.” He winked as he saddled the mare. “Do not fret.”
“But I’m wearing skirts. And I’m not wearing the right shoes. And … you do not understand, I see. So I will be forced to repeat myself. I have no talent for this. Or anything else. Believe me, I’ve tried. There was knitting, of course, then watercolors, then gardening. That poor little patch of pansies.” She tsked. “I tried shooting with Nora. That was quite dangerous, especially with how bad at it I was. And—”
He kissed her again, then led her and the mare into the arena. Once they stood at its center, he stopped, placed both hands on her shoulders. “Look at me, Freddy, and listen well.”
The corner of her mouth hitched up. “No ‘Freddy darling’?”
“Not right now. That’s a stage name. And I need to speak to the real you. There’s no way in hell you do not possess a talent. As far as I can see, your entire being is talented.”
She shook her head, her chin trembling. What a ninny she was.
