What a Woman Desires (18 page)

Monica flinched as Jane’s accusation sliced through her plans with precision and purpose. She walked across the length of her sister’s bedroom, fighting to hold on to her burgeoning temper. “That’s not fair. I am thinking of all of you. I have thought of little else within a week of coming home.”

Jane glared. “How can you say that? I went to the city with you and I saw you, Monica. I saw the way you light up in that theater. It was clear to me, and Mama, that if possible you would have stayed right there, never to return.”

The venom in Jane’s words and the strength of her fury provoked Monica’s temper further.
Why had I thought Jane any less hardy than me? We are of the same blood and borne of the same parents. Why would Papa’s plans and Mama’s need to serve his wishes not have driven the softness from her as well?
Sadness for the loss of the sweet-tempered sister enveloped Monica and she slumped. “All I saying is, won’t you at least consider Dr. O’Connor as a possible candidate to buy the house? He is ambitious and wants to build a life in Biddestone. We could even negotiate selling to him a little at a time if he cannot afford its entirety straightaway. Maybe you’re right, maybe I do want to take you and Mama back to Bath, but you cannot say I haven’t tried to like it here too. You’ll be happier in the city, I know you will.”

“Why? Because it suits you to think I will? You have no more certainty of that than I.” Jane stood from where she had been sitting on her bed and approached the window. With her back turned, she shook her head. “When I asked you to come here, it wasn’t to turn our lives upside down.” She turned and crossed her arms. “I thought with Papa gone, there was no reason for you not to come home permanently. Clearly, I could not have been more mistaken.”

Monica stared. How did she tell her sister facing Thomas every day was more than her heart could possibly bear? Staying at Marksville was no longer an option, despite feeling a slowly building pull toward it.

“I have a life I love, Jane. I cannot just throw it all away because of tradition and the fact people seem to think the only way for Marksville and its tenants to go on is with me at the helm.” Monica fisted her hands on her hips as determination welled inside her. “The estate will thrive regardless of me being here. If we sell to the right person, a person who truly wants it, we would have passed Marksville to trusted hands. Why can you not see that?”

“Because it’s ours. It belongs in the Danes family.” She glared. “We should be here and love Marksville as Papa did.”

“Why? Who says that we must? I do not understand. . . .” Monica stilled, realization hitting her hard in the center of her chest. “My God, you loved him, didn’t you? Despite Papa envisioning nothing more for you than seeing you chained to Mama as her companion, possibly for the rest of her life, you still loved him.” Monica closed her eyes and slumped her shoulders. “I just assumed—”

“Then you assumed wrongly. I don’t want to leave. I have a life in this village.” Jane left the window and came forward until she stood just a few feet from Monica, her eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “I admit I wanted you to come home and help me with Mama, the estate, and everything else, but I really thought you would want that, too, once you were here.”

Monica stared as further heartbreak pulled at her. “It will never be what I want.”

A solitary tear rolled over Jane’s cheek and she took Monica’s hands. “I want to marry and have children, but I want that here, not in Bath or anywhere else in the world, in fact.”

Tears filled Monica’s eyes. “Then you should stay here. At Biddestone. But the house will be too much for you to run alone. We must find a buyer. If you sell Papa’s apartment in Bath, you will have enough for a house in the village and plenty of money to live on.”

Unable to bear looking into Jane’s sad and desperate gaze a moment longer, Monica gently drew her hands from her sister’s trembling grasp and walked toward the window. She stared at the tree-lined avenue, before casting her gaze to the right. Her heart kicked to see Thomas tending one of the many hedges surrounding Marksville’s vast lawns. She closed her eyes. “We must find someone to buy the house and then I will halve the proceeds with you. This house doesn’t make you happy, Jane, the village and its people do. I will come back and forth as much as possible, but I can see no way of resolving this without one of us sacrificing our heart’s desires. I don’t want that for you, and I don’t want it for myself.”

Silence.

Opening her eyes, Monica stared at Thomas’s broad back as he reached out his arms and released and clenched his hands. The muscles in his back rippled and the tendons in his forearms flexed and moved in a show of pure, unadulterated masculinity. Her center pulled and her heart quickened as memories of his careful, yet fiery lovemaking rose and flooded her body. She needed to get away from Marksville—she needed to get away from Thomas—before she was pulled back into the eye of the storm she’d fought so hard to escape.

She turned. Jane stood in the same spot, her arms crossed and her face etched with frustration. “I will miss you so much. I’ve liked having you home again.”

Monica exhaled and came toward her, pulling Jane’s hands from their tense position. She squeezed her hands. “I can’t stay here, Jane. If I do, I will wither and die.” Monica closed her eyes, but it didn’t stop her tears from falling. “I think I love him, Jane. I think I love him and I can’t stay here where I can see him every day and not touch him . . . not love him.”

“What? Who? Who do you love?”

Monica slowly opened her eyes. “Thomas. I love Thomas. I have to leave before one or both of us wastes our lives on a love that would be selfish to pursue.”

Jane’s eyes were wide but dancing with happiness. “You love Thomas?”

Monica nodded. “Yes, and you can stop that foolish happily-ever-after look in your eyes. If this were about propriety and class, I would say damn it all and ask the man to marry me myself.” Monica swiped at her cheek, her other hand trembling around Jane’s, and she laughed dryly. “But it’s not, it’s about Thomas’s love of the country and mine of the city. We aren’t right for each other, and I love him too much to expect him to turn to my life if I won’t turn to his.”

“But surely—”

“No, Jane. I have to go.” Monica released Jane’s hands and inhaled a shaky breath. “But it’s also your time now. Let me take Mama back to the city with me. It’s my turn to care for her now.”

“But—”

“She has friends there, Jane. Lots of friends, and I can afford the best medical care. I’ll arrange for a nurse to look after her while I am working and then spend every other possible hour with her myself.”

“But—”

“Please.” She cupped a hand to Jane’s jaw. “Please, tell me you think this the best solution for us all. If not, then I will think of something else, but I cannot stay here.”

The seconds ticked by and then Jane smiled. “All right. We’ll see if we can sell the estate to someone who will keep everything as it is and our tenants in their homes and employment. If we can’t, then we must think of something else.”

Monica smiled. “Agreed.”

“And if I know you at all, you already have someone in mind.”

“Maybe.”

“Who?”

Monica cleared her throat as a sudden unease rippled through her.
Am I wrong to pursue the doctor? I don’t know him. What if he buys the estate and then evicts Thomas and everyone else from their homes?
She inwardly cursed her doubt. Unless she stayed herself, there would never be any guarantee of what would or wouldn’t happen. It was a risk she was bound by her future happiness to take.

She paced a few feet away and then turned to Jane once more. “What do you think of Dr. O’Connor as a possible candidate?”

Jane raised her eyebrows. “Dr. O’Connor?”

Monica hesitated, not wanting to tell Jane that it was possible the doctor planned to seduce her as a way of gaining access to Marksville. “I just think he has ideas of grandeur, and if I’m proved right, there’s nothing wrong with you and I offering what he wants on a plate.”

“Could he afford it?” Jane pushed out her bottom lip in thought. “I’ve seen no evidence that he would have the money.”

“But we could at least put him to the test.” Monica strode forward, excitement slipping into her veins. She clasped her sister’s hands. “We could at least see what he has to say.”

Jane stared, her brow furrowed in thought.

Monica waited, her heart beating hard.

At last, Jane’s frown dissolved and her mouth curved into a wide smile. “All right. We’ll try. We’ll see what Dr. O’Connor is made of.”

Monica grinned. “Oh, Jane, thank you.” She pulled her sister into an embrace, and tried to ignore the pain in her heart over the lost love of the man outside the window.

Thomas sat at the table in the Marksville kitchen, and the heat of Jeannie’s and Mrs. Seton’s astonished gazes bored through his bowed head and into his skull. He was wearing a dinner jacket and trousers borrowed from Matthew Cleaves and feeling about as out of place as any man could.

“So, let me get this right . . .” Mrs. Seton’s slapped a tray of sweet rolls she’d just extracted from the oven onto the counter. “You’re to sit at the table as a guest and try to work out what is best for this place as though you’re one of them, rather than one of us?”

Thomas wearily raised his head. “Yes, the answer isn’t going to change, no matter how many times you ask the bleeding question.”

Mrs. Seton sniffed. “I don’t know who’s more insane to think this will change anything about the future or our jobs, you or Miss Monica.”

“I agree.” Thomas lifted his hand to push his hair away from his face, then remembered his hair was combed and ready for dinner . . . rather than the stable. He dropped his hand to the table, curling his fingers into a fist. “I have no idea what Monica thinks she’ll achieve tonight either, but I’m hardly going to refuse her request, am I?”

“
Miss
Monica, and you know they could end up making a mockery of you up there.” Mrs. Seton raised her eyebrows. “What does she think will happen? She might respect what you have to say, but I’ll put a pound to a penny no one else at that table will.”

Thomas pushed up from his seat and glowered. “Well, that’s for me to worry about, isn’t it? I can look after myself. If there’s anything I can say or do to make our lives better and keep Miss Monica from making a mistake, where’s the problem?”

“Thomas?”

He turned to Jeannie who stood at the oven, her expression filled with anxiety. “What?”

“Ma said Miss Monica might sell the house. Is she right?”

Exhaling, he slid an arm around Jeannie’s shoulders, pulling her in close. “I’m going to do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Tonight is just the first of my endeavors; whatever comes next I’m ready.”

She looked at him and frowned. “But what does Miss Monica expect you to do tonight? How will you have any influence on what the gentry think or do? The master thought a lot of you, but like Mrs. Seton said—”

“And so does Monica.” He looked from Jeannie to Mrs. Seton. “She might not have been as open with me as I’d like so far, but I think hosting this dinner is her attempt to see if any of the local gentry would be interested in buying Marksville or knows somebody who would.” He clenched his jaw. No matter how much he fought to resist touching or loving Monica, he would support her. This dinner, and her invitation to join the discussions, illustrated her commitment to the tenants and for that, he was grateful. “If she can rally interest locally, then there’s every chance the new owner will keep on both staff and tenants because they’ll know us. I agree with her reasoning. It’s harder to eject someone from their home when you have known their family all your life.”

“So she still wants to leave? Go back to Bath?” Mrs. Seton sucked a breath in through her teeth and took the rolls off the tray one at a time to lie on a fancy platter. “I never took Miss Monica as thinking herself better than the likes of us here in Biddestone. She’s clearly changed over the years.”

Protectiveness for Monica simmered inside him and Thomas glowered. “She hasn’t changed. She’s still as caring, kind, and infuriatingly stubborn as she’s always been. The difference is she’s now had a taste of liberty, of a life where she’s in charge and free to do as she sees fit.” He shook his head. “I can’t make her understand that running the estate could still offer her the same sense of independence—”

“And how do you work that out? If she takes on this house, she’ll need a man to help her run it.”

He clenched his jaw. “She’s managed well enough on her own.”

Mrs. Seton’s eyes widened. “So as long as you get to keep your home, you’re happy for Miss Monica to live alone in this big house and run it all by herself? Don’t talk daft, Thomas Ashby. The woman will marry and have children by a man whether she truly loves him or not. This estate is too much responsibility for one person. If she goes back to Bath, there’s still a hope she’ll marry for love. I don’t blame the girl for trying to get rid of the place, regardless of the effect on us. What woman in their right mind wants to marry for the
right
reasons? A woman like Miss Monica needs a man with fire in his belly and her in his heart. Any less and she’ll wither like a flower in winter. Is that what you want for her?”

Nausea gripped his stomach and Thomas looked to Jeannie. His sister stared back at him expectantly. He lifted his chin. “Of course not. I’ll see she’s all right.”

“Oh, will you now? And how are you going to do that?” Mrs. Seton arched her eyebrow.

“If she stays here, I’ll be right beside her every step of the way.”

Mrs. Seton’s laughed. “Oh, yes, I can see you running the horses and serving the meals, picking up food from the village, and raking the lawns will keep her warm of an evening. Good God, Thomas, do you want to see her a spinster?”

Heat burned in his gut. He released Jeannie and marched across the room toward the door, only to whirl around when he was there to glare at Mrs. Seton. “What else am I supposed to do? I’ve told her I’m here for her. She knows how loyal I am to this family. I will not waiver. Whatever she needs from me, I’ll give to her.”

“She doesn’t need you in that way, though, does she? She isn’t going to look to the help for a husband and the father of her children. She needs a man of breeding. A man used to dealing with money, accounts, tenants, and servants. If she wants to go, the kindest thing we can all do is let her. This is bigger than the house, Thomas, this is a young woman’s life.”

“I know that, but she belongs here. This house needs her. Miss Jane is a good woman, but she hasn’t got the strength of her sister. Husband or no husband, Monica will make a success of Marksville, maybe an even better success than the master. Whether or not she’s alone, she’ll never feel lonely.”

“Thomas?”

The sound of Monica’s voice at the doorway made him, Mrs. Seton, and Jeannie snap their heads around as though bound by rope. The women dipped curtsies and Thomas bowed, his heart beating like a freight train. “Is everything all right?”

Her expression was stony. Her blue eyes bored into his, her cheeks red and her shoulders stiff. Had she heard them discussing her life and how she should live it? Hell, if she did, she’d give him grief for that whenever they were next alone. She tilted her chin. “The guests are due any moment. I would like you to greet them with me so everyone who attends knows you are acting as my advisor tonight and not Papa’s groom. I thought it best we set the standard from the very beginning.”

He nodded, his body rigid. “As you wish.”

She looked at Mrs. Seton and Jeannie and offered them both a smile. “I trust all is in hand and you know what I need from you both this evening?”

“Yes, Miss Monica.”

“Yes, Miss Monica.”

She turned her gaze on Thomas and her smile vanished. “If you’d like to meet me upstairs when you’re ready. As you said, for now I might be alone, but I won’t be lonely. I want to marry one day and I’ve come to realize what I’ve known all along . . . the right man for me is not to be found in Biddestone.”

She left and silence descended, heavy and unyielding. He turned to Mrs. Seton, Monica’s words twisting and burning where she meant them to—in his heart. Mrs. Seton grimaced. “I guess we just added more fuel to her fire to be out of here sooner rather than later.”

Thomas briefly closed his eyes, his frustration and stupidity pulsing in his blood. He now realized just how all-consuming and dangerous his passion for Marksville really was. The last person he wanted to hurt in his quest to keep his family from poverty was Monica, yet time and again, he seemed to be doing just that.

When Thomas reached the top of the stairs and stepped into Marksville’s wide and open lobby, Monica stood alone on the black and white tiled floor, staring directly at him. Like a beautiful, tempting, dark-haired Aphrodite, she stood tall and elegant, cast in the amber glow of the fading sun streaming through the open front door behind her. His body came alive once again with the need to have her for his own.

As he walked forward, his hands cruelly tingled with the remembered sensation of her naked skin beneath his palms, and his heart ached with the remembered pain in her eyes after the slash of his words saying they would never last as lovers.

For the first time since her return, she looked ill dressed in mourning, and he suddenly longed to see her in color and light, satin or silk. Marksville only served to shroud her in darkness.

He inhaled a shuddering breath and stopped in front of her. “Are you certain hosting this dinner is the best way forward?”

Her blue eyes traveled the length and breadth of his face, pausing a moment to linger at his lips before her gaze met his. “You look handsome, Thomas.”

Surprised, he smiled. “Thank you.”

Their eyes locked for a moment before she blinked and pulled back her shoulders, glancing toward the door. “I have spoken with Jane and we are agreed that finding the right person to buy Marksville is the only way forward. With you beside them, anyone could run the estate.”

He held her gaze, willing she hear him. “Including you.”

She smiled softly. “It’s time we moved on. No more talk of me staying here. I forbid it. From now on, we focus on finding the right and new master of the estate.”

Biting back the need to tell her he knew deep in his soul she should be there, with him, he nodded. “So from this confidence, I assume you have someone in mind?” He glanced toward the door. “You haven’t told me who’s attending.”

She inhaled and her chest rose. “I visited Matthew Cleaves yesterday.”

Thomas stilled. Matthew Cleaves was a good and honest man, but Thomas couldn’t imagine him for one minute running Marksville with everything else the man did—and did well. He frowned. “And he spoke of an interest in Marksville? I would’ve thought he had more than enough to cope with as squire.”

She smiled. “No, not Matthew . . . I mentioned the doctor to him.”

Tension rippled through Thomas, raising the hairs at his nape. “Surely you wouldn’t consider selling to O’Connor after I’ve told you what I suspect of the man?”

Her cheeks flushed, but her blue eyes burned with determination and authority. “If it’s the house he wants, why not let him have it? If what you suspect is true and it’s the bricks and mortar he really wants rather than Jane, wouldn’t he be thrilled to discover he has no need to court anyone to make it his own?”

“That’s hardly the point. If he has a ruse—”

“Thomas, the decision is made. Jane and I intend to do our utmost to convince the doctor to buy Marksville. He is keen to integrate himself into the community. It has to be worth presenting the option to him at least.”

Thomas shook his head as the feeling of being at the entrance to a darkened and dangerous abyss skittered up his spine. “It’s a bad idea.”

“Why? Because you don’t like him?” She laughed. “Thomas, this isn’t about who we like or don’t. This is business.”

He stared as disbelief and disappointment flowed through his veins on a turbulent and dangerous wave. “Business?”

Her smile faltered. “Yes, I care for you . . . I care for Mrs. Seton, Jeannie, all the tenants, but Marksville is a home and working estate. There is no room for emotion anymore. If this house is to be kept alive and well, it needs someone at its helm willing to work at its potential in order to turn a profit. Years from now, if people who own houses such as ours only think of inheritance and emotion, our finest houses will disintegrate through pride and neglect.

“You should be glad that I am thinking about the estate’s prosperity. I am not the person to ensure Marksville thrives. I want to flourish in Bath, not here. If you want to stay here, if you want to pass your position on to your children, you have to support me in my endeavors or neither of us succeeds.”

He gripped her hand, his heart beating fast and his love for her and Marksville pulsing hot through his veins. “O’Connor is not a good option.”

She closed her eyes as though unable to look at him. “He’s the only option I have left.”

Thomas cast his gaze over her closed lids, her fine cheekbones, her tempting lips, and his body once more yearned for this fantastical, wonderful woman. “Neither of us succeeds if you leave.”

Her hand trembled against his palm and she opened her eyes. “Thomas, please. Don’t do this.”

“I have a bad feeling. You would not usually expect me to obey when I have doubts.”

She shook her head, empathy showing in her eyes. “You would have a bad feeling whoever bought it. You love Marksville more than anything. All will be well, I promise.”

He clenched his jaw. “Don’t say that.”

“Don’t say what?”

“Don’t promise me all will be well when nothing . . . absolutely nothing worthwhile can be promised to me or my family anymore.”

She inhaled and her breasts rose and fell. “Let go of me.”

He gripped her hand tighter. “Do you think I turned away from you the night at the theater because I wanted to? Do you think I released your naked body from my arms with ease and disregard? I did it because I can’t afford to think of anyone or anything else other than my loved ones. My father worked too hard for me not to do everything I can to keep his legacy alive. He was proud to work here and even prouder of me. I have to think of that. Always.”

Her eyes burned bright with unshed tears, but they were fiery with anger and her cheeks blazed red. “I know that. Worse, it makes me respect you all the more as a man and a son. We both know our relationship begins and ends with this cursed house. You will never leave and I will never stay. We’re not supposed to be together. You’ve always known that to be true and at last, so do I.” She pulled her hand from his. “So let’s do what is right for you and your father and to hell with me. But don’t touch me again. I can’t bear it.”