'I meant to help.'
'I thought I knew the extent of my debt to you. And now I find it is everything I am, plus thirty-four pounds? What a fool I was to spend some of it. I will have to dip into what little savings I have, to return the full amount to you.'
'You misunderstand me, Diana. I do not want money...'
'Then there is only one thing you could want from me.' Her gaze felt cold upon him. But there was nothing cold about her. Her eyes flashed, her skin was flushed a healthy pink, and the trembling of her lips made them all the more kissable.
He could feel his gambler's nerves trembling in answer beneath a facade of calm. Her disdain for him aroused him as much as it angered him. He could remember the feel of those lips, her hands on his face, her look of concern when he told her of his past. When he'd held her in his arms in Hyde Park, she'd been eager to forgive him anything and ignore his flaws. Was he so different today?
He threw his hands in the air. 'All right. I admit it. All of it, Lord help me. I never wanted the letter in the first place. I begged your father to stop before it came to this. And when he would not, I thought to shock him to his senses with a bet no sane man would take. It was a mistake. It does no good to bluff a madman. And Diana Price, your father was too mad with cards to care about his own daughter's honour.'
She covered her ears as though the truth was something she did not wish to hear.
'So I did an unthinkable thing. But I did not seek you out. Not once in ten years. And when I found you, quite by accident, I had no intention of acting upon this letter. I gave you the money hoping to assuage my guilt, which has been acute.' He laughed at his own folly. 'And it seemed to help. I even thought, for a time, that all was forgiven. I'd convinced myself that it would be possible to offer for you honourably and hide what I had done. You would have been happy with your fantasy of Mr Dale. I would have made sure of the fact.
'But then, the Gypsy threatened to tell you the truth, and I was willing to do anything to prevent it. And he has gone and done it anyway, hasn't he? For how else would you have found me?' He silently cursed Stephano Beshaley, and his own folly for believing that there was any mercy left in the man who had once been his friend.
'You have come to this house, which once was yours, to demand the truth. I will no longer deny it. I am Nathan Wardale, the man who ruined your father and your life. And I want you. Totally and completely. In ways that you cannot imagine, and that cannot be encompassed by this foolish bit of paper. The sight of you, the sound of you, the taste of you. Your sweet face, your soft skin, the way you tip your head to the side when you are thinking, and pretend to frown while smiling, so that you can appear to be the stern old chaperone, and not as young and lovely as the girls you watch. I can hardly breathe when I think of you. And the kisses we shared in the park?' He gave a slow shake of his head. 'The memory possesses me.'
'You villain.' She reached out a hand to strike him, but he caught it easily and pulled her body to his. The kiss, when it came, seemed both expected and unfamiliar. He opened her mouth and drank her in. She was as sweet and good as he'd remembered, her body warm and inviting. And he felt as she returned the kiss, her tongue moving in his mouth and her arms reaching out to circle his waist.
And then she pushed him away, wiping at her mouth as though her own actions disgusted her. 'I hate you.'
'You do not even know me.' He held out a hand to her, hoping that it would soften her mood. 'But I would like you to. We could forget the past. Start fresh, as we planned.'
'Not while that marker exists.' She swallowed.
'Here, then.' He put the paper into her hand, and curled her fingers about it. They were so cold, almost numb, that he feared she would drop the thing once he released it. And for a moment, he thought it was over. She had the note and he did not. That was what she had come for. Now they could start again.
But then, he saw the look in her eyes. She was still suspicious, waiting for the catch, the snare, the string that came attached to the paper. There was no good way to convince her that he did not expect a reckoning. If he left her alone, she would live waiting for it. And if he did not? Then it would be all she could think of, on their first night together.
'What do you want from me?' she said, her tone dry and empty.
And so he answered her. 'What do you think I deserve?' If she thought him such a demon, the least she could do was tell him so. Damn him to hell and call him unworthy.
She went to the sofa by the fire and lay down upon it, fumbling with her skirts, spreading her legs.