“That sounds rather unpleasant.”
“Not as unpleasant as death.”
He pulled the cloth away from her throat, slowly, far more slowly than was necessary, and the teasing material made gooseflesh appear on her arms.
“And that is why you do not wear a cravat,” she whispered.
His hand replaced the material of the cravat, sliding up her neck and then down to finger the lace at the top of her night rail. Lorrie held her breath, feeling the warmth of his fingers so close to the flesh of her breast.
“Any more questions?”
“Why do you hate Francis so?” she said, without thinking. Who could think with a man like him so close?
Immediately, she wished she hadn’t asked him. All the warmth fled from his eyes, and she felt as though a bucket of ice water had been thrown over her.
His hand dropped away from her. “That is in the past.”
“I don’t think so.” She should stop talking now. He obviously did not wish to speak of this, but her mouth often moved without the consent of her brain. “He seems to bear you quite a lot of animosity, and I do believe the feeling is mutual.”
He leaned back against her father’s desk, his thighs resting on the edge. “You wouldn’t believe me, even if I told you.”
“It is hard to know what to believe when I only have one side of the story.”
He gave her a long, assessing look. He’d seemed to open up to her the past few evenings. He’d spoken more, been silent less, even offered answers containing more than yes or no. Lorrie did not need to be told she was beginning to see a side of him few ever did. And so many foolish people considered him a dumb brute. They didn’t know he could make sharp retorts or witty observations or clever ripostes. In short, they didn’t know him at all, and the truth was, neither did she.
But she wanted to know him.
The silence had gone on for several moments, and she couldn’t stop herself from breaking it. “Perhaps you think that because your father always believed Francis, that everyone else will too. But I’ve always known you to be truthful. Give me a chance.”
His hands, which had been resting on the edge of the desk, lifted and fell again as though in indecision. “There are a hundred reasons I hate my cousin, all of them small and petty. It’s the whole of them together, more than one incident, that makes me hate him.”
He didn’t trust her. She could see the wariness in his eyes, the way his lids lowered and his pale lashes veiled those ice-blue depths.
“Tell me one reason you hate him. Give me one incident. I know about the letter he had your father send and his role in this swindle.” She ticked off her fingers. “You need only give me ninety-eight more examples for me to understand as well as you.”
He barked out a low laugh. “You should have been a general. You are relentless.”
She straightened her shoulders. “My governess always told my parents my persistence would be an asset when I grew older.”
He looked dubious. “I will tell you one incident.”
She nodded eagerly, backing up until she sat in her father’s chair. She had known he would never tell her eight incidents, much less ninety-eight, but this was something. “Go on.”
He closed his eyes, the image of defeat. “I used to carve wood figures.”
*
Her expression of eager anticipation turned to one of skepticism. “Wood figures? I thought this was a tale of your childhood with Francis.”
“If you want me to tell it, you shall have to stop speaking for a moment.”
She closed her lips and pretended to lock them. Ordinarily, such a gesture would annoy him, but just like everything else she did, he found it slightly adorable. She had a way of worming under his skin until he told her things he had not intended. He hadn’t wanted to share his father’s predicament with her, but he had anyway. He hadn’t meant to tell her how much he desired her, but he’d confided that as well. She was the first person he had ever met to whom he genuinely enjoyed speaking.
Correction: She was the only person he’d ever met to whom he enjoyed speaking.
“As I said, I used to carve wooden figures. I’m good with my hands.” He glanced down at his hands, trying not to think about how good he’d been at using them to cut off the life of enemy soldiers. “When I was a boy, I carved about seventy-five or a hundred soldiers out of wood.” He had carved eighty-three, but she did not need to know the exact number.
“Goodness. Just the soldiers or the horses and cannons too?”
“Mainly infantry, but some cavalry and cannons as well.” It had taken him hours to carve the figures over several years. Not that the time to complete the task had mattered. He was alone most of the time after he’d been sent home from school. Occasionally his father would hire a new tutor who made an effort for several weeks to teach him, but the men all gave up eventually. And so he’d had time to carve. He’d made each soldier unique, giving him a name and a facial expression as well as specific hair color and eye color. He’d even made up a history for each soldier, devising previous battles and heroic acts for his little men.
He’d known each of their names and ranks, and he loved nothing more than ordering them in various lines where he could pretend they were marching or moving into battle formations. It had been his only source of pleasure as a child, since he could not read and had no playmates.
“My brothers and Francis had been home from school on a break.” He hardly remembered which one now. But the other children rarely invited him to play with them, and as they were all older than he, they teased him for still playing with toys. “And I had left my soldiers in the garden when we’d been called in for a meal. The little men had been in formation, and I’d planned a great battle for them. It was one of the few times I hadn’t wanted to leave what I was doing and eat.”
“Oh dear. Something happened to the soldiers, didn’t it?” she asked, her expression filled with concern.
“I was inside longer than anticipated because Francis or one of my brothers had broken a lamp and blamed me, and my father had taken me to task for it.” That was what his father had called it when he took a birch to Ewan’s back and shoulders. “By the time I returned, the figures were completely destroyed.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, sitting forward.
Ewan swallowed. It still angered him, all of these years later. “Francis had destroyed all of them.”
“How?”