Trial by Desire (Carhart #2)

“Not exactly.”


She gathered the shreds of her gown about her. “Well. That hurts.”

She had confessed her hurt to him so easily, without worrying what he might think of her. Ned felt a twinge of oh-so-unworthy jealousy.

Just before he’d left for China, he had once sat in on a set of meetings that his solicitor had arranged, so that he might hire an estate manager. He had not known what sort of questions to put to the candidates, beyond requesting letters attesting to their character and competence.

His solicitor, however, had filled the time. The man hadn’t interrogated the potential workers on their views about agriculture or animal husbandry—questions that Ned might have found relevant. Instead, he’d concentrated on questions that seemed irredeemably useless.

“What,” the man had asked each fellow earnestly, “is your greatest weakness?”

It was a stupid question because it was nothing but an invitation to spout falsehoods. No man had ever answered with, “I drink to excess and beat my children.” Instead, the vast majority of them had come up with answers that were carefully crafted to avoid any appearance of weakness at all.

“I am so eager to serve my masters,” one fellow had said, “that I must sometimes take extra precautions so as not to work on the Sabbath day, in violation of God’s commandments.”

Another man’s greatest weakness had ostensibly been a proclivity for boiled sweets.

It hardly seemed a surprise. Only an idiot or a very brave man would confess his true feelings. Ned kept his greatest weakness lodged deep inside him, hidden from common view. It was a deep, frightening chasm of inadequacy, which he had learned to hide behind a veneer of humor. He’d papered over that chasm these past years, but he kept it in check with what Lady Harcroft had called black magic tricks. Cold at night. Exercise in the morning. Tricks designed to keep him firmly in control of himself.

Everyone lied about weakness. Everyone, that was, except Kate. She admitted fear and hurt without pausing at all.

It was not just that she owned up to her weakness. She owned her weakness; it did not own her.

She did not need to tiptoe around it. She did not need to grab control and hold on, unwilling to let go. She just said it aloud.

She stared at him, and he realized he’d been silent all along.

He wanted her to stay. He wanted to own not just her body, but her easy self-possession. To feel the strength of her seep into him as she slept beside him at night. All he would have to do was light a spill from the oil lamp and start the kindling going with a little bit of fire.

She wouldn’t understand what that bit of warmth would mean to him. She would see it as light and heat, not another aspect of his control, ceded to someone else. She had no way to know what he feared, had no need to fight the encroaching darkness.

“Right.” She stood and gathered her night rail about her. Even cloaked in that filmy material, she seemed as regal as a queen. “Well, then. I suppose I should go.”

She started to walk away from him.

He stood, took three strides across the room and grabbed her arm.

She looked up at him, her eyes implacable in the reflected lamplight. “What is it?”

He couldn’t say what he meant, so instead he simply hugged her to him. She was soft and lovely, and she smelled like lilac in summer. “It’s not you,” he muttered into her hair. “It’s the fire.”

She pulled away and raised one eyebrow. “That’s comforting,” she said in a tone that suggested she was anything but comforted. And before he could damn himself with faint explanations, she left the room.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE MORNING WAS STILL GRAY and misty, the sun not yet over the horizon when Ned arose to say his farewells to Harcroft. The man had dressed and breakfasted by the time Ned’s boots crunched the gravel on the drive. Harcroft’s carriage waited, the boot loaded with the trunks the man had brought.

Ned put out his hand. “Best of luck to you,” he said. “And Godspeed.” The latter he meant; he couldn’t wait until Harcroft had put miles between him and Kate. The former sentiment was about as insincere as he could manage.

The earl clasped his arm briefly and then looked around. “Think on what I told you the other night. Think on it carefully. Because if you do find Louisa here, you’ll have to act in my stead.”

God forbid. Ned shook his head. “I thank you for your concern. You’d best be off. You’ve a long journey ahead of you, and you’ll need every hour of daylight.” He glanced behind him.

“Looking for your wife?” Harcroft asked dryly. “Still nervous about her, eh? Still asking for her permission for every touch, and cringing like a child if she says no?”