One Unashamed Night by Sophia James

presence and his bearing. He was a man who looked as though he did not fit into the dusty quietness of this reading room, but should be on a battlefield somewhere, danger imprinted in his eyes.
    ‘When could we start?’ His question in the light of such thoughts disorientated her.
    ‘Pardon?’
    ‘When is it that you would begin helping me?’
    ‘You are saying that you would like me to try?’
    ‘Indeed. After such an eloquent persuasion why should I not?’
    ‘Some men may be…too timid to admit to such a fault.’
    ‘Not me.’
    ‘Then you are unusual in such honesty, my lord, and I admire you all the more for it.’
    His lopsided frown concerned her.
    ‘If you are free tomorrow, perhaps a walk in the park might be a good beginning.’
    ‘I am sometimes a little uncertain of my footing in wide-open spaces. The vestiges, I suppose, of the drink wearing down my balance.’
    ‘Then I shall, of course, help you.’
    ‘How would you do that?’
    ‘Would it be frowned upon if I threaded my arm through your own, my lord?’
    He shook his head firmly.
    ‘Perfect,’ she answered, feeling for the first time in two days a little more in control of everything. She had let Frankwell get worse and worse without doing anything. Could his own redemption have been as easy as Taris Wellingham’s? My God. Why had she not tried such a remedy for him?
    She knew the answer even as she asked the question. Because she had hated him, hated her husband and everything he stood for and in the late-night drunken ramblings he took by the river she always hoped he might just trip and sink unbeknown into the murky depths of the water. Guilt rose in force, as did contrition, though when the companion she had first seen with Taris Wellingham reappeared in the background she could tell that he was waiting for them to finish.
    ‘I do hope to hear from you, my lord, regarding a time and a place for this exercise.’
    ‘Oh, you will, Mrs Bassingstoke.’
    ‘And I shall not say a word about anything we have discussed today…’
    ‘A sensitivity that I should ever be grateful for.’
    ‘There is one other thing that I would suggest, if I may.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Throw out all the strong liquor in your house and replace it with water. That way temptation is never close at hand.’
    His laugh reverberated around the space they stood in as she gave him her goodbye and hurried for the door.
    Temptation?
    Lord, it was not the drink he was tempted by, but the sound of her voice and the feel of her skin against his when he had moved and touched her by mistake.
    Too damn tempted! He forced down desire as Jack Henshaw spoke.
    ‘Who is she?’
    ‘Mrs Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke from Ipswich. She was one of the occupants of the carriage accident I was involved in.’
    ‘She had much to say to you?’
    ‘She thinks I am a drunk.’
    ‘Why the hell would she think that?’
    ‘Because the other day she saw me lose my footing and my direction. I would guess from what she does not say that her husband used to be a heavy drinker and, putting two and two together, she has come up with five.’
    ‘You didn’t enlighten her then, I gather?’
    ‘You know me too well,’ he drawled back. ‘Blindness or a predilection for the bottle? Which one would you pick?’
    Jack stopped walking. ‘It’s got a lot worse, then? Your eyesight?’
    Taris nodded and made to walk on, irritated when Jack stayed firm.
    ‘There are doctors who might help you if you went to see them.’
    ‘Which I won’t be doing.’ Lord, he had done the rounds of the medical fraternity when he had first returned home from Jamaica and not one of them had been hopeful; his denial at what they had told him curled up into a harder anger. He did not wish to be hauled off again to a physician who would only disappoint him and the risk of gossip emanating from such a visit was too high. No. He would fight this creeping blindness on his own terms and in his own way. He swore it.
    Another