It had taken me years to get over that. Years to find the joy in sex, although God knew I tried very, very hard and very, very often. In fact, it wasn’t until I met Julian and Silas in Amsterdam that I succeeded, realizing that if I had control of the situation—if I could be on top, or at least direct my own orgasm, then I could enjoy it without reservation. I’d slowly but surely won back my sexuality from Cunningham, although there were still so many dark corners of my memory where he lurked, so many places where fear and pain dwelt.
Except with Silas. When he’d spanked me in the maze, when he’d hoisted me over his shoulder and carried me out to the lawn to ravish me, like a brute in some Italian opera, and oh God, when his hand was wrapped around my throat…
I shivered at the delicious memory.
Somehow, when Silas was That Silas, that predatory Silas I’d never seen before last year, somehow he drove all the other darkness away. There was only room for him, for his Cambridge-accented voice delivering those filthy commands, for his hands gripping my neck, for his dick, hard as steel and so delightfully thick and long. He could do the exact same things Cunningham had done, and I would welcome them gladly because when Silas used me, it was with boundless respect and affection and love, and because I wanted him to.
Not that the difference mattered. Not anymore. I had no choice but to marry Hugh, no matter how much I longed for Silas.
I stared at my face in the mirror. Drawn and fatigued. Wary and sad. What would it look like if I were wearing Silas’s ring on my finger? Would I still be drinking that tea every morning?
I shook my head to clear the thoughts and got dressed for the day, mechanically pulling on my clothes and trying not to cry. I’d received word that van der Sant would be in town tomorrow and there were a few last minute things I wanted to check before he arrived. My business still had a future…even if I didn’t.
Julian, Ivy, and George were staying with Castor, so I invited myself to stay as well, mostly to be close to my good friend, but also on the remote, slim, nigh-impossible chance that Molly might come to the mansion. I didn’t know what I would do if I actually saw her—I only knew that something needed to be done. I loved her. I wanted to take care of her. But my past failings prevented me from doing just that, and I didn’t know where to go from here, how to escape this net we’d woven around ourselves.
George and I were lying together on the plush Persian rug in one of the scores of receiving rooms that the Baron seemed to have. George, almost five months old, had sat up for a little while, before rolling onto his back and beginning to industriously gnaw on his feet. Ivy sat pensively in a window seat, a book half-open on her lap as she stared into the gardens, probably wishing she could escape outdoors. And Julian sat near me, reading a paper, patiently waiting for me to divulge all of the reasons I was a pouting, pitiful lump.
“You do realize I can wait all day?” Julian asked dryly, not bothering to look up from his paper.
“I’m busy,” I said, helping George grab his other foot. I wasn’t really though, and it wasn’t even that Ivy was in the room—we’d been together, quite intimately, on the couple of occasions that Julian had wanted to share her with me, and I tended not to be shy around women after I’d come in their mouths. No, it was simply that saying all of the words out loud—all of them, including the ones about how I’d fucked up totally with Mercy—was too damn hard. They lodged in my throat, along with all the guilt and pain and misery.
But later, after supper, when Ivy had taken George up to bed, Julian and I were back in the library with tumblers of the Baron’s best gin, it all came pouring out. How I’d come to England after getting Julian’s letter. How I’d found Molly and made my proposition, only to find myself with Mercy the very next morning. I’d told him about the sex on the Baron’s lawn and Molly’s subsequent engagement to Hugh. About Cunningham.
By the end of my story, true darkness had settled outside and a servant had come in to light a small fire to ward off the slight chill creeping in from the windows.
“I never liked Hugh,” Julian remarked, taking a sip of gin. “He always struck me as a voyeur of sorts. But I wouldn’t have suspected him of conspiring with someone to take advantage of Molly.”
“I know! The only reason we allowed him in was because of Molly, because she liked him.”
Julian tapped his fingers on the glass. “So does Molly know about the connection between her board and her future husband?”
I shook my head. “And I don’t see how I can tell her without her thinking that I’m trying to stir up trouble.”
“I’ll tell her the next opportunity I have,” Julian said without hesitation. “As I am the only one of her friends that has been in an unhappy marriage before, I feel as if I have no choice. She should know everything before she goes to the altar.”
I didn’t say anything for a few moments, because what I wanted to say was so petulant and selfish that even I recognized how immature I was being. But it pushed itself out of me anyway. “What if you tell her about Hugh and Cunningham, and she doesn’t care? What if she still decides to marry Hugh?”
Julian took a thoughtful drink.
When he didn’t answer for a few moments, I sighed and set my glass down. “And don’t judge me. I know you are wondering whether I’m asking this out of a pure and loving concern for her well-being or whether I’m asking because I’m jealous, and what I want to know is why can’t it be both? Why can’t I be certain that she’ll be unhappy with Hugh and want to protect her from that, when at the same time I want to have her for my own? Why must it be mutually exclusive?”
“I would never tell you that it has to be,” he replied slowly. “In fact, I would trust you less if you told me you had no personal stake in Molly’s happiness. But you know that Molly won’t be steered—not after she’s set her course and especially not by a man who’s hurt her. And I think that if you don’t want her to marry Hugh, then you’re going to have to do a whole hell of a lot more than fuck her.”
“The Baron said as much,” I said glumly, picking up my glass and draining the last of my gin. “But what do I do?”
We sat in silence for a while, the fire popping and the sound of a piano trickling in from some unknown room. I thought of that day a year ago, when I found her crying in her parlor. I thought of my contingency plans. I thought of all the miserable lonely years that awaited me if I let her slip through my fingers. A plan started to formulate in my mind, a plan as distant and frail as those piano notes, a plan that wasn’t exactly playing fair. But then again, I’d warned her I wouldn’t play fair.
It would take time. Another week, if not two.
“Julian,” I said, turning to my oldest friend in the world. “If I told you I wanted to do something a little…crazy…would you help me do it?”
I was signing off on a few papers before I met van der Sant’s delegation at the docks when Hugh set a pile of papers in front of me and then sat down in the chair across my desk, leaning back in a smug pose that unaccountably irritated me.
“What’s this?”
The morning sunlight streamed through the windows of my small townhouse library, illuminating the gold in his hair, just like it had Mr. Cunningham’s. I swallowed back the bitter taste that always came with memories of that vile man and tried to focus on Hugh’s answer.