He should not need nudging. There was almost nothing here with which to alleviate his boredom. And no one with whom to strike up a close friendship. No one like his usual friends, anyway, though he found himself feeling kindly disposed toward Sir Matthew Quentin and even Wenzel when the man was not foisting his attentions upon Lady Barclay. He was forced to share his home with three women and a menagerie of animals, one of which stuck to him like glue. It was a wonder Hector had not turned up at the assembly rooms tonight. There were the other strays too, the ones of the human variety. And there was a steward who appeared to be gathering dust along with the estate books and must somehow be persuaded to retire. There was an estate going to ruin. There was . . .
Well, there was the woman beside him in the carriage, silent, stiff, as cold as marble again. He had no idea what he had done to offend her this time. If they had quarreled, she had started it—What part are you playing now? . . . You are neither smiling nor oozing charm. She had seemed to thaw a bit after that, though. She had even apologized for her rudeness. But now . . .
He had no idea why she was so prickly. What was more, he did not care—or should not care. She irritated him beyond endurance. She alone was enough to drive him back to his own world, except that he had discovered a stubborn streak in himself this week. Had it always been there? He was almost sure he did not like her. And there was nothing particularly attractive about her. Or beautiful—despite an earlier thought to the contrary.
There was that curled lip, though.
A curled upper lip did not an attractive woman make.
He kept to his own side of the carriage seat and looked out onto darkness. She kept to her side and did the same. Not that it was possible to put much distance between oneself and another on a carriage seat or prevent the occasional touch when the carriage turned the slightest of bends or hit a rut, which was a lamentably frequent occurrence on English roads. The air was cold. They could have seen their breath if there had been any light to see by.
Percy had always enjoyed waltzing, provided he could choose his own partner. For some totally unfathomable reason, considering the surroundings and the quality of the music, he had found this evening’s waltz more than usually enchanting. And so had she, by thunder. That was the most irritatingly annoying thing about Lady Barclay. It was as if she had set herself quite deliberately never to be finished with her mourning, never to allow herself a fleeting moment of happiness, even on the dance floor.
Let her wallow in her own self-pity, then. It did not matter to him. He would remain silent in her presence forever after. Lips locked shut. Throw away the key.
“I suppose,” he said, “you were raped.”
Good God! Oh, devil take it and a thousand thunderbolts fall on his head. Good Lord! Had he spoken those words aloud? But of course he had. He could hear the echo of them, almost as if they were rattling about the interior of the carriage like bullets from a gun and could find no escape. And if there was any vestige of doubt to be clung to, there was the fact that she had swung about to face him and drawn in a sharp, very audible breath.
“Wh-a-a-t?”
“I suppose you were,” he said more softly, closing his eyes and willing himself to be anywhere else but where he was. Preferably tucked up in his own bed coming to the end of a nightmare.
“In Portugal, do you mean?” she said. “In captivity?”
He kept his eyes and his mouth shut, a bit too late. Please don’t answer. Please don’t. For someone who had become a great expert at avoiding all that was unpleasant in life, he had developed a huge capacity during the past week to invite calamity.
He did not want to know.
“You suppose wrongly,” she said, her voice quiet and flat. He would have been far happier if she had raged at him, even come at him with her fists.
He ought not to believe her. What could she be expected to do, after all, but deny it? What woman would wish to admit to having been raped while held captive? Especially to a near stranger.
But he did believe her. Or perhaps he just wanted to. Desperately.
“You suppose wrongly,” she said again and even more quietly.
He turned his head. He could not see her clearly in the darkness, but of course they were very close to each other, and his mouth did not need eyes. It found hers very accurately without their aid.
He drew back after no more than a few seconds and waited for the sting of her slap on his cheek—or a punch to the chin. Neither one came. Instead she sighed, a mere breath of sound, and when his arms went about her to draw her closer, hers wrapped about him, and her lips parted when his own touched them again, and she made no protest when his tongue pressed into her mouth.
It was a good thing he was sitting. When she sucked inward on his tongue, he felt his knees going, and in sheer self-defense he curled the tip of his tongue to draw along the ridge of bone at the roof of her mouth until she moaned softly and he realized what he was up to.
Willing, warm widow.
Whom he wanted with a fierceness that seemed to go beyond the mere lust for sex.
Who could turn to marble at the mere drop of his hat.
Whom he did not very much like.
Who was going to hate him more than she already did when she remembered her dead husband once more.
A thousand damnations, and another one thrown in for good measure!