Lola’s return was making him realize that neither man was the man he wanted to be. He felt chained by forces that were pulling him in opposite directions. On one side were obligation, duty, and expectation, his deep love for his family, and all the conventions and beliefs with which he’d been raised. On the other was only one thing: his deep, unwavering desire for one woman.
A drop of rain fell, tapping the brim of his hat, then another, and another, but he did not stop. When the road forked at St. John’s Church, he veered left and kept walking.
Was there no middle ground? he wondered. Was there no way for him to bend with the forces around him and not break? Was there no compromise? No stable, solid center, no eye in the midst of the hurricane where he could be content? That was what he really wanted.
In other words, he thought wryly, he wanted to have it all. And perhaps, like Georgiana, he could not quite accept that life wasn’t willing to hand it over.
Ah, but what if he took it?
There was, he knew from schooldays, a Persian proverb, something about taking what you want, but being prepared to pay the price to the gods, whatever the price might be.
What price was he willing to pay?
He stopped on the sidewalk, and it was only then that he took stock of his surroundings. He was in St. John’s Wood, walking along beside the pretty little villas of Circus Road, villas where many mistresses had been kept over the years by many young and callow gentleman of the aristocracy.
He walked farther along the road, then stopped again in front of a small stone house that stood behind a discreet wall of ivy-laced wrought iron, a house that had once belonged to him. The delphiniums planted in the urn by the gate were vivid purple in the twilight, and the granite façade of the house shimmered silvery gray in the rain. It looks the same, he thought, and tightness squeezed his chest. It looks exactly the same.
Memories swamped him, memories of walking up those whitewashed steps, of Lola at the top of the staircase and her radiant smile beaming down on him like sunshine, of her running down the stairs and straight into his arms, of him carrying her right back up.
He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, feeling the raindrops spatter his face. He inhaled deeply, but what he smelled on the breeze was not the dampness of a spring day, but the delicate sweetness of jasmine.
The clatter of carriage wheels on the road opened his eyes, and he looked over his shoulder as a growler came up the street. It stopped beside him, but when he saw the astonished face of the woman on the other side of the window glass, her eyes widening in shock beneath the narrow brim of her white straw hat, he could not share her surprise.
To him, her arrival seemed inevitable. Fate offering him a choice: take what he wanted and pay the price, or walk away for good and all. There was no middle ground, no solid center. There was Lola, and there was everything else.
She’d said he didn’t know who she really was, and that was true, because he now understood that she was not at all what he’d thought her to be. She was not a force beyond his control, she was not something to be fought, or seduced, or conquered, or denied. She was simply his woman, for now and for always, and even if she broke his heart all over again, even if everything he’d tried to be was in ruins afterward, he did not care.
He took a step toward her, then stopped. He’d already made his choice, but he wasn’t the only one who had to choose, and he certainly wasn’t the only one who’d have to pay the price.
He doffed his hat, watching as the driver climbed down from the box, pulled out the step, and opened the door for her. Hat in his hand, heart in this throat, he waited.
She didn’t move, not to come out, nor to invite him in. “What are you doing here?” she asked, sounding bewildered, almost plaintive.
“The same thing as you. At least, I hope so.”
She shook her head, as if denying it, but then she sighed, seeming to realize denials were pointless. “I didn’t know you would be at that flower show. Kitty—my friend—she bought the tickets and asked me to go, but she didn’t say it was your mother’s event. Oh, God, Denys.” She paused, lifting one white-gloved hand in a hopeless gesture. “If I’d known, I’d never have—”
“It doesn’t matter.” He rubbed a hand over his rain-soaked face, and he waited.
“And your sweetheart?” She gave a laugh that to his ears sounded forced. “I’ll wager you had a great deal of explaining to do there.”
“She’s not my sweetheart, and that doesn’t matter either.”
A tiny frown knit her auburn brows together. “But you’re going to marry her, aren’t you? That’s what the scandal sheets are saying.”
“The scandal sheets will say anything if it will sell newspapers. The truth is, I had been considering the possibility of courting Georgiana, with perhaps a view to marriage, and had been spending much more time in her company this season than previously, but I had not yet indicated any serious attachment or intention.”
She drew a deep breath. “Perhaps you haven’t, but she feels a serious attachment to you. It was in her face. I saw it.”
“Georgiana has harbored hopes about me since our childhood, and I fear my recent attention toward her fueled those hopes, much to my regret. But today, I made it clear to her that those hopes will never be fulfilled. I daresay Georgiana will make some man a fine wife, but she now knows that man will never be me.”
The rain was falling harder now. His hair was soaked, and so were his clothes, but he didn’t point that out. Though he had no idea what she was going to do, he didn’t try to help her make a decision. He willed himself not to move. He hardly dared to breathe. And he waited.
And then, after what seemed an eternity, she slid back on the seat to allow him inside with her, and Denys’s heart leapt in his chest with such force, it hurt.
He was across the remaining distance in less than a second. “The Savoy,” he told the driver as he stepped into the cab. “If I don’t tap the roof when you arrive there, keep circling Covent Garden and the Strand until I do.”
And then, he was in the cab, Lola was in his arms, his mouth was on hers, and he knew he had just walked straight into the teeth of the storm. He knew the choice he’d just made might cost him everything he’d spent the past six years trying to earn. He knew he might have to give up all the trappings of his position and the pleasures of good society. He might even have to sacrifice the affection of his family and the respect of his father. But if that was the price to have the only woman he had ever loved, he’d pay it. He’d pay it gladly.
Chapter 18
Lola knew this was a mistake, one that would probably wreck him, and her, and everything both of them were trying to achieve, but with his mouth on hers and his arms around her, she just couldn’t summon the will to stop it. When he dragged her onto his lap, she wrapped her arms around his neck, and when his tongue touched her lips, she parted them in willing accord.