Trial by Desire (Carhart #2)

“As you may recall, I can be a terrible beast.” He didn’t move. “And you still don’t trust me.”


Kate crossed over to him and sat down on the bed. The cotton batting of his mattress gave way under her weight. It sagged; as a consequence, his body canted toward her. Ned didn’t pull away. But he didn’t move closer, either. Instead, he looked at her, his eyes dark and dilated. “I’m freezing.”

He didn’t pull her close, as she’d hoped. Instead, he watched her warily. “I don’t like to lose control.”

Kate inched her fingers across the coverlet toward his now free hand. His knuckles were heated, even though he’d been sitting in the cold. “Ned,” she whispered, “let me inside your control.”

A shiver passed through him, from his shoulders on down. The transparent silk that covered her offered scant protection from the chilled air. She fumbled with the knot of ribbons in front. It was awkward to try to remove the garment one-handed, but it felt right to keep her fingers pressed on top of his. The material slid past her shoulders.

His eyes fell to see what she had bared. Beneath the nightgown, her br**sts were peaked, the ni**les poking into the fabric, her skin pebbled.

“Don’t pretend you don’t desire me,” she said. “And I won’t pretend, either. Let me inside. You’re not the only one who will descend into irrationality if we continue on this path of abstinence.”

His member twitched in what appeared to be happy agreement. But he stared at her for a long while before speaking. “I thought you’d take lovers,” he finally said. His voice was low and hoarse. “I assumed you would, when I left.”

After all that had happened, after all that had passed between them this past week, she hadn’t thought that he could still hurt her. But it stung. His words stung so badly—his casual assumption that she would give herself to another, and the even more casual assumption that he would have simply accepted that outcome instead of fighting to keep her his—that she almost turned away. But she’d asked him to let her inside.

He’d left her. She wasn’t going to like everything he had to say. And as much as the possibility frightened her, if she never risked hurt again, she’d never have happiness, either.

Kate pulled his hand close. “It’s not about my honor. It’s… Well, I thought about infidelity at first. It would have been easy enough. I wanted to make you really and truly sorry for abandoning me. I imagined that Lady Blakely would send you word, and you’d come rushing back to me, all hotheaded anger.”

“Ah,” he said slowly. “When you imagined me rushing back, did I challenge your lover to a duel?”

“On bad days,” she said with some asperity, “you lost.” But she drew a circle on the back of his hand with her thumb.

That little scene was so much supposition—a fanciful drama, to contain the shape of her own tortured desires. Because what she’d really imagined was that her husband had cared about her, enough to come rushing to her side. “I did think about what I would do if I returned to find you’d taken a lover.”

“And did you think about challenging my hypothetical lover to a duel?”

“No.” He raised his eyes from their joined hands to look her in the face. “In my imagination, I was given the chance I squandered when first we married. This time, I would court you. I would seduce you. I would show patience and care and I would convince you that this time, you would choose me—not have me foisted upon you by some happenstance of fate. I wanted to earn your regard, not have it handed to me by default.”

“Well. You’re seducing me now.”

He ran his thumb along her wrist. Such a tiny point of contact, to send such a jolt through her. “No, blast it. You’re seducing me, which I have to say is rather unfair of you. I want to prove that you can rely on me, that I’m not some foolish man driven only by irrational lust. I want—I need you to know I’m not Harcroft, to be swept up in a surfeit of emotion.”

It was the first criticism she’d ever heard him utter of his friend. She wasn’t sure how to respond. But if there was a surer way to bring this conversation to a halt than to discuss Harcroft, Kate didn’t know it. She looked up at him in cool regard. “Are you saying it’s irrational to want me? Is this going to run along the lines of the reasons why you refuse to light a fire?”

He walked his fingers up her wrist, up the curve of her arm to the crook of her elbow. And now he leaned in until his face was inches from her.

“Hardly.” His voice was dark; his breath came hot against her lips. “I’m fairly certain I don’t deserve you.” She could actually see the mist his breath made in the cold.

“Naturally.” Her voice seemed calm, but her heart was racing. “Luckily for you, I’ve decided to take you as my lover anyway.”