“Joel—” she said.
“Do you know what I was doing today between the time the carriage brought me back and the time I came to the schoolroom?” he asked, looking up at her. He did not wait for her to hazard a guess. “I wandered the streets, mentally squirming and clawing at myself as though to be rid of an itch. I felt—I feel as though I must be covered with lice and fleas and bed bugs and other vermin. Or perhaps the contaminating dirt is all inside me and I can never be rid of it. That must be it, I think, for I will never be anything but a bastard to be shunned by all respectable folk, will I?”
Good God, where was all this coming from?
“Joel,” she said in her sergeant’s voice, “stop it. Right this minute.”
He looked blankly up at her and realized suddenly that he was sitting while she was still standing in the middle of the room. He leapt to his feet. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and made her a mock salute. “I feel as though I am teetering on the edge of a vast universe and am about to tumble off into the endless blackness of empty space. And how is that for hyperbole, madam schoolmistress? I ought not to have brought you here. I ought not to have kept you standing while I have been sitting. You will think I am no gentleman and how very right you will be. And I ought not to be spouting all this pathetic nonsense into your ear. We scarcely know each other, after all. I assure you I am not usually this—”
“Joel,” she said. “Stop.”
And this time he did stop while she frowned at him and then took a few steps toward him. If he had not been fearing that at any moment he might faint, or fall off the edge of the universe, and if his teeth had not been chattering, he might have guessed her intent. But her hands were against his chest and then on his shoulders and then her arms were about his neck before he could do so, and by then it was too late not to take advantage of the comfort she offered. His arms went about her like iron bands and pressed her to him as though only by holding her could he keep himself upright and in one piece. He could feel the heat and the blessed life of her pressed to him from shoulders to knees. Her head was on his shoulder, her face turned in against his neck, her breath warm against his skin. He buried his face in her hair and felt almost safe.
Will you hold me, please? I need someone to hold me, she had said to him here on almost this very spot a few days ago. Now it was he making the same wordless plea.
Why exactly was he feeling so upset? He had always known that someone had handed him over to the orphanage, that whoever it was had chosen not to keep him, that in all probability that meant he was illegitimate, the unwanted product of an illicit union, something shameful that must be hidden away and denied for the rest of a lifetime. Yes, something—almost as though he were inanimate and therefore without real identity or feelings. A bastard. He had always known, but he had never given it a great deal of thought. It was just the way things were and would always be. There was no point in brooding about it. Having learned now, though, the name and identity of the woman who had abandoned him and her relationship to him—she had been his grandmother—and knowing how she had gazed on him in secret and been upset for days afterward without ever being upset enough to come and hug him, everything in him had erupted in pain. For now it was all real. And that man, his great-uncle, had insulted what little dignity he had, wanting to use him in order to wreak vengeance upon legitimate relatives who he believed had neglected him.
Joel knew all about neglect. He did not necessarily approve of vengeance, however, especially when he had been appointed as the avenging agent. Just like an inanimate thing again.
She used a sweet-smelling soap, something subtly but not overpoweringly floral. He could smell it in her hair. She was not slender, as her sister was and as Edwina was—and as Anna was. But her body was beautifully proportioned and voluptuously endowed. She was warm and nurturing and very feminine—despite the fact that on first acquaintance she had made him think of warrior Amazons, and despite the fact that she had just spoken to him in a voice of which an army sergeant might be proud.
They could not stand clasped thus together forever, he realized after a while, more was the pity. He sighed and moved his head as she raised her own, and they gazed at each other without speaking. She kept her femininity very well hidden most of the time, but her defenses were down at the moment. She was warm and yielding in his arms, and her eyes were smoky beneath slightly drooped eyelids.
He kissed her, openmouthed and needy, and tightened his hold on her again. He pressed his tongue to her closed lips and they parted to allow him to stroke the warm, moist flesh behind them. She shivered and opened her mouth and his tongue plunged into the heat within. He felt himself harden into the beginnings of arousal as his hands moved over her with a need that was somehow turning sexual. But . . . she was offering comfort because he was bewildered and suffering. How could be take advantage of that generosity of spirit? He could not, of course. Reluctantly he loosened his hold on her and took a step back.
“I am so sorry,” he said. “That was inappropriate. Forgive me, please. And I have not even invited you to sit down.”
“I am sorry too,” she said as she moved away from him to sit on the sofa. “I am sorry it has been so upsetting to you to have learned that your grandmother supported you but did not openly acknowledge you. It is the way the world works, though. It would have been stranger if she had made herself known to you. She had feelings for you despite everything, however, and she did do her best for you.”