For Your Arms Only by Linden, Caroline (best ebook reader for ubuntu .TXT) 📕

risk that again? He wasn’t the sort of man she needed, a decent honorable man who could give her a proper home. He was a man adrift, disgusting to his own family and unwanted by his neighbors. Even if he offered her marriage, she would be a fool to accept. Alec focused on his hands, clasped on his knee, and reminded himself of that last fact. If he looked at her too long, it might just slip his mind.

“Unless there is something in his journal, I fear we have few avenues left to explore.”

She started at the word “journal.” “Oh! Yes, I have been working on it, but haven’t solved the code yet.”

He nodded. “Perhaps that will reveal something.”

She nodded, smoothing her palms over her lap. “Yes, perhaps.” After a moment of awkward silence she got to her feet. “Thank you for telling me. Good night.”

He drew a harsh breath as she crossed the room. “Cressida.” She paused at the door without looking back. “The other day, in the library…” Slowly she turned her head, not quite facing him. Her eyelashes veiled her gaze. “I apologize.”

Her eyelashes trembled. “For what?”

“For—” Not for kissing her. Not for touching her. “For keeping you when you wished to go.”

“And for the rest?”

Finally she looked at him, that direct, open gaze that had first caught his attention. Alec couldn’t have lied to her now to save his soul. “I am only sorry for that if you are.”

The color rose in her face and heat flared in her eyes. He would probably spend the rest of his life trying to find a name for that color. “Good,” she whispered. “Neither am I.” She opened the door and went out, closing it softly behind her.

Cressida went to her room, hardly able to believe she had said that to him. She might as well have said out loud that she wanted him, which made her smile nervously as she climbed the stairs. The flash of desire in his eyes was everything she could have hoped for. She just didn’t know what it could lead to.

Callie was unpinning her hair, humming quietly. There was color in her face and a sparkle in her eye that Cressida hadn’t seen in a long time. The rose silk dress was hanging over the wardrobe door, as if spread out for continued admiration and enjoyment. The sight brought back her conversation with Tom, and shook her out of her haze of longing. Silently she picked up the brush and went to work on Callie’s curls.

“What a lovely evening,” Callie said. She smiled at her reflection, tilting her head a little to the side and looking almost coquettish. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Yes.”

Her sister glanced at her. “You disappeared quite early. Where did you go?”

“I didn’t have your queue of admirers waiting on me. I’m surprised you noticed I was gone.”

“Hardly a queue. One gentleman who was kind.”

Cressida raked the brush hard through Callie’s hair, making her sister squeak. “Very kind, it looked to me. No, I walked out and talked with Tom instead. Sometimes it seems we take him for granted, since he’s been with us for so many years.”

“I suppose,” said Callie on a gasp. She was holding tightly to the edge of the table as Cressida yanked on her tangled hair. Cressida relented and gentled her strokes until her sister’s fingers eased their grip and slid into her lap.

“I think we’ve all underestimated Tom. He is one of the most wholly decent men I know, a gentleman in deed if not by birth. Just think of where we’d be now if he hadn’t stayed with us all these weeks since Papa left. I cannot imagine life without Tom, can you?”

“Of course not.” Callie looked surprised by the question.

“And it struck me, as I was watching Mr. Davis hang on your every word, that I’ve known Tom for years. We get on quite well together.” She had Callie’s undivided attention now. Cressida hid her satisfaction and continued sweeping the brush through her sister’s long dark curls as she talked. “Perhaps I’ve been overlooking something, or someone, right before my eyes.”

“Cressida.” Callie seemed to have trouble speaking. “Are you—are you saying—or trying to say—is he—Tom—does he—?”

“Well, setting my cap for Tom would be sensible, wouldn’t it? We would neither of us be deceived in the other’s character. Granny would always have a home, and you, too, if you wished.”

“Well…perhaps, but—”

“And he has his pension. He told me, when he bought the silk for the dresses. Now that we’ve lost Brighampton, we might go anywhere. In Portsmouth there would be more work for him, and we could take one of those cozy houses down by the quay, the ones you and I used to admire so much.”

“So you—you are in love with him?”

Cressida heaved a sigh. “No, not in love, although I am very fond of him. Didn’t Papa always say that would be more than enough? I suppose I’m too old to be particular about that anymore.”

“Papa said—” Callie’s voice rose into a high squeak. She stopped, then spoke in her normal tone. “Papa disapproved of Tom. Mr. Webb, I mean.”

That was twice Callie had slipped and called him Tom. Cressida would have smiled, except that she heard the feeling not in those utterances, but when Callie called him Mr. Webb. “Papa’s no longer here, and I cannot help thinking he doesn’t mean to come back. And in any event, I’m hardly a young girl who has to do my father’s bidding. I daresay if Tom will have me, I couldn’t find a better match.”

Callie sat silently.

“Do you not approve of my idea?” Cressida prodded.

Her sister stared at her reflection with wide, dismayed eyes. Cressida sank down and sat on the back of the dressing table bench. “Unless, that is, you fancy him,” she said quietly. “And think he might return your affection.”

“Perhaps,” whispered Callie, meeting Cressida’s gaze in the mirror.

“Did Papa…?”

Callie blinked, and gave a slight nod. Cressida tamped down the burst