Courtesan's Kiss (39 page)

He’d be happy to tickle Mia’s toes anytime she wanted. With great effort he managed not to say that
aloud. “I was thinking something similar. That when they are together he is the boy I grew up with before the dukedom so weighed him down.” He straightened, pointlessly, a stack of papers on his desk. “Interesting that we both saw the same thing.” The seesaw was in balance for just a moment.

Mia walked to the center of the room and made a slow turn, taking in all the bits and pieces he had collected. “How can you work in here with all these strange statues watching you? They must be from Mexicado.”

“From Mexico.” The seesaw swung him high so that she was on the ground and in control. This was not a conversation he wanted to have.

“There is nothing from Mexicado?”

“Memories” was all he said.

“Oh, yes, and they cannot be given away or hidden, can they?”

The seesaw swung back, in balance again.

M
IA UNDERSTOOD THE REASON
for the one-word sentences. David did not want to talk about this. So she would.

“I think we all have some of those. When my father was dying I was desperate for medical care for him but all the medicos had gone to the front.” She drew a bracing breath. This was not at all easy. “Papa and I were alone in a dark, cold, empty house. The servants had gone to watch the fighting or to see to their own families. Janina had gone for help and had not come back. I was afraid she was hurt, or worse.”

Mia closed her eyes and waited until the tears that threatened subsided. When she continued, tears filled her eyes anyway. “I knew Papa was going to die, sooner than he had to, and all I could do was tell him how much I loved him and beg him to stay with me. Help came, finally,
only he had been dead for hours. That is a memory I would gladly give away.”

He nodded, his face filled with sympathy.

You see
, she thought,
we are not that different
. But she kept the thought to herself for fear he would laugh at her.

“This room is filled with memories, David. Would it not be easier to forget if you began to make new ones?”
With me
. Again, she kept that to herself.

“These,” he waved at the statues and jars, “are the good memories. As you say, the bad ones are with us in a place that is impossible to expunge.”

“Tell me one.”
Let me share the burden
. Mia stood very still, afraid that if she made any gesture of affection or understanding she would scare him away.

David looked away from her and stared at a wall plaque, a figure that looked like a rising sun full of power and glory, possibly a god from some ancient times. She saw him pat his pocket as if smoking would help, but either he did not have a cigarillo with him or he remembered how much she hated them.

He went to his desk and sat down, shuffling some papers until he uncovered a small shaped piece of stone which he held tight in his hand, still saying nothing with eyes or words.

Mia gave up.
Hell
, she thought, quite deliberately.
This man does not even want my love
. His words cut into the tirade forming in her head but not yet spoken.

“I had as hard a time obeying authority as a slave as I did as a midshipman. Whenever I broke a rule I was punished, but I was a very valuable commodity, a strong,
healthy male. When punishing me physically did no good, the overseer took one of the other slaves and made them suffer in my place.”

“How awful. I’m so sorry. It would be like punishing one of the footmen every time I said no.”

“Worse than that, much worse.” He looked away from her, and she was glad she could not see the agony in his eyes. “He would always pick someone that I cared about.”

Loved
, she thought.

“Not just men, but women, and the children of people I knew. It would be like someone killing Janina because of something you did.”

She felt vaguely ill at the thought and wondered how many times this had happened.

“Is that a bad enough memory to satisfy you?”

Mia was taken aback by his angry tone and could only nod.

“Telling you does not make me feel any better.”

“Then we will never speak of it again.”

He had no answer for that.

“But you see, David, I feel better for hearing it. It brings me closer to you in a way that has nothing to do with making love.”

“What are you doing here, Mia?”

She did not want to tell him. She did not want to be the first one to say
“I love you.”

“I wanted to speak with you in private and I knew eventually you would come here. What took you so long?”

“I was looking for you.”

“Really!”

Before he could answer her, there was a tap on the door.

“Enter,” David called out, and the Duke of Meryon joined their small group. He seemed surprised though not completely shocked to see Mia there.

“We were just talking, Your Grace,” Mia said in a rush of words as she curtsied deeply to him.

“Yes, I can see that. I appreciate your discretion.”

As was almost always the case, Mia could not tell if the duke was being kind or still regarded her with contempt. “If you wish to talk to Lord David, I will leave.”

“Please stay, Mia.” David glanced at the duke. “I have no secrets from you.”

Mia’s heart skipped a beat. If he truly meant that … If …

She sat in the chair nearest the door and listened while the duke explained that he had given David’s situation further consideration.

Someone had changed his mind
. Mr. Garrett? Elena? Mia did not care who, but pressed her lips together to keep from laughing out loud. Her mind spun off into an adventure worthy of Jane Austen until David’s terse voice called her back from the happy ending.

“Then I am exactly where I was before, Your Grace. If you are only willing to provide half the funding then I must spend months, if not years, finding other financial support. It is as good as you saying no.”

She wanted to shout at David to accept it with thanks and make the most of what the duke offered. The man
could be so stubborn. There were ways and ways of finding the money he needed.

“David, I cannot risk that much of the estate’s assets for any project. It’s about being cautious. Your passion for the mill blinds you to the chance that it might fail.”

“It will not fail!” Mia could contain herself no longer.

“Thank you, Mia,” David said, “Your confidence is—”

“David,” she interrupted him, since he was sure to say something annoying. She could tell by his tone of voice. “I will invest in your project. I will provide the other half of your financing.”

The two men stared at her.

“I am sorry, but it will take a while. I will not have control of my money until next year, but surely you can move ahead with the project with that promise in mind.” She nodded as if they would both agree without hesitation.

“I will not take your money,” David. “You need financial security.”

“But I will have it if I invest in your cotton mill.”

She looked at the duke.

He did smile, but then shook his head no. “A very sweet gesture, Mia, but acting on sentiment is a sure way to financial disaster.”

“It is very clear to me that you two have the same blood and were raised by the same hidebound antiquarian tutor.”
And father
. She was going to throw rotten fruit at the old duke’s bust if this did not work.

She walked up to David so that he had to look at her
and not the duke. “If you will not use my money, then marry me and it will be your money to invest.”

“You’re proposing to me?” David looked and sounded dumbfounded.

“If that’s what it will take to convince you that I am serious about this investment.”

“Mia, I love your generosity and appreciate your faith in me, but to marry would mean a life considerably different from the one you have now.”

“It will be an adventure,
and
we can make love whenever we want.”

Her outrageous comment had the effect she had hoped for.

The duke broke in. “I will go and let the two of you resolve your differences.”

He could not leave fast enough. The room was quiet for a very long moment while Mia waited to see what David would say. Silence was often as good as action.

“Listen to me,” David said, taking her by the arm.

Of course the right action could never be underestimated, either, so before he could say any more, Mia kissed him.

David could not doubt the intensity of her feeling. Tumultuous, overwhelming, so intense that her body was shaking with need. They clung to each other with their mouths, their hands, their bodies admitting with each caress that they were so much better together than they were when split apart.

She leaned back in his arms and tried to catch her breath.

“I love you,” David said.

They were almost the most wonderful words Mia had ever heard, even if she didn’t understand his added “Damn the seesaw.”

“David, my dear and only lover, that sounds like an ultimatum rather than a declaration.” She kept her arms around his neck and kissed his chin.

A smile touched his lips. “I love you, Mia.”

“Much more loverlike and nearly perfect. And I love you.” She punctuated each word with a quick kiss and ended with a kiss that left him in no doubt.

He grinned, almost let loose a soft laugh. “Aha, so the seesaw is in balance.”

“What seesaw?”

He explained his theory to her.

“Why, it’s wonderful. It will be the way to measure our lives for years to come.”

She moved against him, seeking a different kind of balance. He started to untie the ribbons at her back. “Wait,” she said, and when he stilled his hands she asked, “David Pennistan, will you marry me?”

He laughed and kissed her. “Only if you will marry me.”

“Yes, of course. As soon as you wish.”

“If you want an adventure, we can elope to Gretna Green.”

How sweetly generous that was, but this was all the adventure she needed for a good long while. “To elope would only convince your whole family that conventions mean nothing to us.”

David laughed again, for as she spoke she led him into his bedroom, then walked over and locked his door.

“And while that may be true, we do not want our behavior to estrange you from your far more proper brother and my guardian, who would understand but take his side as is only right. Can we marry here?”

“Yes.”

She waited for more but he shook his head.

“Mia, my dear, you are living in a dream if you think I am going to abandon one-word sentences. They are so efficient.”

She narrowed her eyes and considered his statement. “Just as long as you’re prepared to hear the word
no
on a regular basis.”

“Not in bed,” he said as they helped each other undress.

“Never,” she agreed, and proceeded to demonstrate that where showing her love for him was concerned, the word
no
was not in her vocabulary.

T
HE NEXT MONTH
passed in a haze of happiness. They argued regularly, and his taciturn answers and her
no
s were as much a part of their engagement as they had been a fixture of their unconventional courtship.

The night before their wedding was typical as they discussed whether she should stay behind while he found them a house in Birmingham. Absolutely not.

“You can be so practical. And unyielding.”
But it also means that I can rely on you to always be there
.

“Your liveliness is too much of a distraction.”

How sweet that he would not say it annoyed him.

“But you make me laugh. Mia, you truly make me laugh.”

“But making someone laugh is so frivolous, not that I’m fishing for compliments,” she added.

“It fills me with joy and I no longer see that as frivolous, any more than you are.”

She curled up alongside his body and kissed his chest.

“There is one more thing that drives me mad,” he said.

“Really?” She could guess what it was.