Page 10 of Much Ado About Hating You (Second Chance Season #2)

Nine

B eatrice almost made it into the house before it started raining. And she almost bumped into Selena when she stepped onto the path right in front of her. Neither of those things happened, though, so when the skies opened up, she had to blink drops out of her eyes to see her cousin clearly.

She looked startled, pale and shaken.

“What’s wrong, Lena?” Beatrice put a hand on her shoulder.

Selena grasped her wrist and hauled her inside, slamming the door closed. She paced the room, shaking her hands from wrist to fingertip. Finally, she stopped and looked at Beatrice.

“What’s wrong? Is Uncle ill? Have you had a letter?”

Selena shook her head. “You were with Mr. Clark just now. I heard… much of what was said. I…” She sank into a nearby chair. “This is all my fault.”

Beatrice pulled a chair over to sit next to her. “I’m terribly confused. Nothing about Mr. Clark is your fault.”

“I need you to tell me the truth. What were you doing out of sight with Mr. Clark beneath the trees? The day you fell in the lake. And then after you climbed up onto the shore. You disappeared. As did he.”

Beatrice swallowed the lump in her throat. “Nothing.” Everything. But not everything because she wanted more. Hated herself for wanting it. He had taught her the meaning of pleasure, and she could not forget it. And today he’d given her compassion, shown her his cracks and soft spots, even though she was the one he should most protect them from. “Nothing,” she whispered again.

“You’re lying!” Selena jumped up from the chair. “I… I saw him pinning you against the tree. I saw how you looked up at him, how you buried your face in his chest.”

“It means nothing!”

Selena shook her head. “I must tell you what I’ve hidden from you all these years.”

Wariness prickled down Beatrice’s spine. “Hidden? You’ve hidden nothing from me. We tell each other everything.”

Selena looked out the window, chewing her bottom lip. The worried tingle along Beatrice’s backbone turned into a full scream. Something was wrong. Selena had hidden something from her.

Her stomach flipping, she said, “Tell me.”

Finally, Selena released her lip, shoulders slumping. She wouldn’t look Beatrice in the eye. “Mr. Fisher went away because of something I did. Mr. Clark witnessed it. He demanded I be honest with Martin. I didn’t want to. I knew what would happen. But also… I… I knew I’d done wrong. So, I made Mr. Clark swear not to tell you what I’d done. And I told Martin. And… you know the rest.”

“What did you do? I do not understand. You’ve never done anything wrong! You’re a paragon!”

“No. I’m not. Beatrice, I kissed Daniel.”

Daniel. Daniel .

He was popping up everywhere.

The name buzzed in Beatrice’s head, louder and louder. Daniel the scoundrel. Daniel the reprobate. Daniel the bigamist. John and Richard’s brother. “D-did he force you?”

“No!” Selena paced toward the window. “When we were last here, when Martin proposed, I was excited. I was in love with him. But I was—” She whirled around. “Beatrice, I was so very scared.”

“Of what? A happy future? Belonging somewhere? Living with someone who loves you, wants you?” A hole existed inside Beatrice where those things had never been, a deep, aching longing that she knew would never be sated. She’d thought she might appease it at one point. With Richard. But he’d proven himself a cad. He’d hurt Selena.

But… he hadn’t…

“I don’t understand,” Beatrice said, voice flat.

“I was young, and Daniel was exciting . So much more than Martin. He was a rake and Martin a scholar, and I did not value the life Martin was offering. It seemed too quiet, too tame. Oh, I wanted that. But not right away. Then he proposed and I said yes, and then… there was Daniel… alone with me one day in the garden. He’d had too much to drink the night before, and I was teasing him about his megrim.” She closed her eyes. “He was sitting on a bench, back against a tree, eyes closed, one leg stretched out. ‘Stop teasing, little bird, or I’ll kiss you,’ he said.” She covered her face with her hands, then dropped her arms to her sides. “And I said, ‘Please do.’ Then, he opened his eyes and told me I wasn’t brave enough. I proved it to him. I kissed him. A short, small thing first. He kept it rather chaste. Afraid, I think, of being caught by his mother or one of the guests. But I wanted more, and I kissed him back. Longer. Harder. And… Richard saw it all.”

Richard saw it all.

A buzzing in Beatrice’s ears almost blocked out her cousin’s story. “I… I asked you what happened. You wouldn’t tell me.” She’d accepted it. Thought it best not to press her dear cousin on an issue so clearly painful to her. “And Richard refused to tell me.”

“I made him swear not to. He promised me.”

“He kept that promise.” But at what cost? Sorrow hit like an angry ocean wave.

“I did not want you to think the worst of me. I did not want to disappoint you. You are a sister to me. I admire you. I am glad you know. I have long carried this guilt, and— Where are you going?”

Beatrice was standing, making her way to the door. “I need to walk.” She’d thought him wrong, rejected him, loathed him.

But she’d been wrong the entire time.

Selena had known, had let her think…

Her hand on the door, she whipped back around. “Why are you telling me this now? After years of lying.”

“Because I’m selfish. Because I’ve been ashamed. I knew I’d hurt Martin, but I did not regret my kiss with Daniel. Why should women be denied the same experiences men have? It is dangerous, I know. Our bodies betray our experiences if we are not careful”—her hand fluttered briefly to her belly—“and the whole of society casts us out. Do you hate me?”

“No.” She understood. She was in search of a lover herself, an avenue to an experience she’d never otherwise have.

A shiver of relief rippled through Selena, and she said, “Mr. Clark is… he is a gentleman. And if Evie is correct, and he has… he has loved you”—tears made her voice tight and halting—“then my selfishness has cost you more than it has ever cost me.”

Yes. Yes. Possibly so.

She stood on a rocking plank above a choppy river, the world unsteady beneath her. She stood alone, the salt in her nose and the wind tangling her hair, stealing her little girl’s ribbons.

Nothing but boats and water and crowded buildings and people like ants, unfamiliar faces, as far as the eye could see.

No mother.

No father.

No cousin.

No one.

“I… I… I must go. I cannot breathe.” She could not think .

Selena came to her side. “We’ll walk in the garden and talk more, and?—”

“No. I wish to be alone.” She left the house, and Selena did not follow.

But Beatrice did not know where to go. No matter what direction she fled, she’d take her mind with her, take her doubts, and take her guilt. So when she finally looked up, she should not have been surprised where guilt had dragged her.

Right to Richard’s woodshop. She’d avoided every thought of it. Yet returned to it during sleep every night. She’d paid no attention to it the last time she’d entered, too angry with the man she pursued to notice any detail. It was a small stone cottage with a thatched roof and smoke curling out of the chimney. There was a single window on the same side as the door, and she stepped toward it, peeked through it. Where there was smoke, there was fire, and where there was fire, there might be a man.

Yes. She’d found Richard.

Shirtless.

Her mouth dried, and her knees turned into overly boiled potatoes—mushy and crumbling beneath her weight. They demanded she crumple, and she did, right down to the ground, twisting as she went until she sat, back pressed against the wall beneath the window, palm pressed against her chest. Her heart thumped like mad.

All that skin… all that muscle… too much for one woman’s gaze. She needed to wipe the image from her eyeballs or perish. It quite wiped everything else out of her head. No matter how hard she squeezed her eyes shut. No matter that she slapped her hands over her face, blocking out the gray light, the cold raindrops.

No matter.

He remained, shoulders and arms and neck and back, burned into her memory, reigniting the buzzing at the juncture of her legs she’d felt before. Something eager and anxious flipped near her heart.

Surely Richard did not truly look like that . Her memory tricked her. No man’s shoulders that broad, waist that trim, muscles that well-defined. They shifted beneath smooth skin like rocks beneath water. She’d only seen his back, outlined by the fire he stood before. The fire had magnified his appearance. It had been a quick glance only. And, yes, she’d touched him the other day, felt hard, corded muscle, felt how easily he’d held her upright as he’d pleasured her, but…

He could not look like that. She’d been wrong.

She’d have to take another look. To be sure she’d made a mistake.

Slowly, she twisted and lifted until only her eyes were above the window edge.

Mouth dry again, legs back to being boiled potatoes.

Oh my. She should have known she made no mistake. She’d never possessed much of an imagination. That man, however, possessed a back like a mountain range, plane upon plane of rock-hard muscle. He stood, still, before a small fire, one arm outstretched toward the mantel, his entire body leaning into it as he stared at the crackling flames in the grate.

Then the marble muscles rippled, and he turned.

She ducked down once more, but not before she saw his chest.

And she forgot how to breathe. Just as muscled on the front—great swaths of the stuff at his chest, all of it peppered in hair that gathered near his sternum and traveled down toward his navel, bisecting an abdomen grooved with muscle. That hair continued lower, disappeared past the waistband of his trousers. What happened in obscurity there? Seemed almost unfair to see this much of him but not the rest.

She peeked back through the window again. He’d picked up some tool—flat and flexible, rather like a stiff cloth—and was rubbing along a corner of… what? Rectangular, thin… a frame. Empty, intricately carved. Each movement he made rippled those impossible back muscles beneath skin that would be smooth and warm and?—

She wiped a dribble of drool off her chin. No. She looked up. Not drool. Rain. A steady patter of raindrops beat her shoulders and hair. She should return to the house, abandon Richard Clark, he of the muscles and sharp rejoinders. And most excellent kisses.

She could not leave, no matter how hard the rain beat against her back, because… because… What had brought her here to begin with? She’d almost grasped it, but then he’d begun to move again, shifting about the space with confidence and ease, reaching for a pointy tool as he put away the stiff paper, tilting his head to inspect his work, digging the pointy thing into the wood.

Woodworking was fascinating.

So was seeing the usually uptight and upright Richard Clark undressed and delicious in this space made only for him. Only for him? Or did he bring a mistress here? Her father kept a woman in a small apartment. He did not hide it well, and she’d heard him speak of it to his man of business. Did this cottage serve a dual purpose for Richard? There was no bed for him to tumble a woman into. Only a chair in the corner, a blanket tossed over its back. All that dust… those wood shavings. Tools strewn across every surface. No woman would willingly disrobe here… would they? Only that chair to lounge in, and surely it was not possible there .

Oh, but why look at the chair, when he was holding up the frame, his forearms flexing beneath the weight. They were bronzed, as if he often revealed them to the sun, and dark hair ranged from wrist to elbow. Thick muscle and popping veins. Sinewy and strong like the rest of him.

Perhaps with such a man, chairs were possible where mistresses were concerned. Perhaps with such a man, mistresses were willing to overlook a bit of dust and chaos.

With Richard… Beatrice would not mind.

And he’d offered. He’d extended an invitation. No, a demand: If you’re looking for a lover, hellcat, a man to make you happy, my door is wide open. I’m yours for the taking.

If he touched her with the same delicacy he did the frame… if he kissed her with such gentle passion as he had in the boat… if he riled her with such cunning as he did every time they spoke… she would gladly undo her tapes and let her gown pool round her feet, grow dusty in the woodchips. She would gladly sit on the chair or in his lap and let him whisper naughty things into her ear, tug her earlobe between his teeth, and nibble on her neck. She would gladly put his hand between her legs where she often touched herself at night.

Be honest, Beatrice.

She touched herself at night thinking of Richard .

And had before he’d made her orgasm. Now she merely had the sensory information to make her vague musings much more real, much more arousing. Dangerous.

He set the frame down and crossed the room, viewing it from a distance, hands on hips. And then he dropped into the chair, draping his body into it, muscle and bone as fluid as that blanket.

His eyes closed, and his lips pressed thin, and the vital strength that had burned each of his movements drained out of him. He seemed to break, a fragile, porcelain man, and she cracked open wide, too. Hairline fractures had appeared days ago at the same time as the truth. Now they were wide open and weeping, crumbling like cliffs during a storm.

What if everything between them had been different? What if she’d been here to see this cottage built and to watch the children come to Slopevale one by one? What if she had added children of her own, Lucy’s age, the twins’ age? What if a meeting to learn Spanish in a library had led not to separation and anger but to kisses and more, more and marriage, marriage and children, and…

Love.

It could have been. It need not have led to loneliness and wanting. So much aching wanting.

He could have told her, no matter what he’d promised Selena. But he’d kept his promise. He’d honored the person Beatrice loved most in her life, protected her.

Beatrice had always known there would be no better way to win her heart than that.

She ran, the rain blurring her vision. She splashed through newly formed puddles, her stockings soaking through from the feet up and her skirts clinging to her legs. No idea where she ran to, only for some shelter away from prying eyes. All eyes. Richard’s eyes, brown and glowing like whisky in crystal held before a leaping fire. When she could no longer breathe, she walked, aimless, realizing she was a fool for not going inside. But she welcomed the rain, welcomed it right into her very bones. It could wash away the past, the anger, the hate. It could leave her fresh and new. Ready.

Her foot hit something. Her skirts shackled her legs. She hit the ground with her shoulder and a cry and lay huddled there for a moment loud with the rumble of rain. With a groan, she rolled onto her back and closed her eyes, cataloging her limbs for injury. She was fine.

Except for her pride.

She should stand and find her way back to the house.

Or lie here. And let the rain wash her away.