Tristan was not like many of the men in his position. He was not opposed to love or marriage by any means. In fact, he would dearly love to fall for someone, to make a life with that person.
But not Rosalind. Not the one person in this world who seemed to see through him, who made him feel as if he could do no right. The one woman who saw the scared boy within that he had worked so hard over the years to bury.
He had spent years denying that child who had tried so hard to please and had failed in every way, building himself up beyond himself and into the man he was. He was not about to give his heart to a woman who made him doubt the purging of those sad memories.
She sensed his hesitation then. He could see it in the deepening of those lines between her brows, in the slight tilt to her head. To stave off the questions that were surely taking shape in that too-busy mind of hers, he hurriedly handed her one of the glasses and sat down opposite her.
“Now,” he said, holding his glass before him like a talisman against the pull of her, “you were saying something about continuing our discussion?”
“Yes.” She cleared her throat, swinging her feet to the ground and sitting forward. He thought it would bring him relief, the businesslike mien she had taken. To his dismay, it did the opposite. For her dressing gown gaped in the front, showing the demure nightgown beneath, making him realize how little she was wearing.
Blessedly she was completely unaware of the torture he was in. “What in the world are you thinking, trying to match Miss Weeton with Lord Kingston?”
“And what is wrong with Lord Kingston?”
She rolled her eyes so violently he was surprised they did not roll right out of her head. “Oh, please. I saw the man.”
“And?”
“And? And he is a rogue. He will not think twice about ruining her, breaking her heart, destroying all the happiness in her.”
He looked closely at her. For there was entirely too much passion, too much knowledge hidden in those words for them to be prompted by a mere opinion garnered from gossip and assumption. And it was not the first time she had given this tell. “What happened to make you feel this way?”
She stiffened, her fingers tightening around her glass. “Nothing,” she muttered, sitting back.
Her expression was once more shuttered. He took a sip of his drink, watching her over the rim, letting the warm slide of the liquor travel down to his stomach before speaking again. “Then you have no reason to think badly of my friend.”
“I have every reason to think badly of him.”
“Do you know him then?”
She hesitated. “No,” she admitted with reluctance.
“Have you heard rumors about him? A firsthand account of his debauchery?”
“No.” This time through tightly gritted teeth.
He shrugged. “I rest my case.”
She sat forward again, her eyes blazing. “You rest nothing. I know what he is.”
For the first time in the exchange, anger began to stir in his breast. “Take care, for he is a friend of mine. I will not hear him disparaged.”
But she was apparently too angry herself to see how close he was to losing his temper. “Speaking the truth is not disparaging. Men like him think of nothing but their own pleasure. Women are playthings to them, nothing more.”
He slammed his glass down on the side table, the sound like a shot. She jumped, her eyes going wide as he sat forward. “You have said similar things of me, Rosalind. Tell me, do you think I am a beast as well? Do you think I am unable to control myself, that I would use a woman for pleasure and then abandon her to pernicious fate?”
For once, uncertainty seemed to take hold of her. And yet, being Rosalind, she would not give up her argument with any grace. “I—I couldn’t say.”
Damn stubborn woman. The anger that sat slumbering in his breast came roaring to life then. “If I was that creature,” he snapped, “I assure you, you would not have walked away from our kiss in the garden with your innocence intact. For the very last thing I wanted to do in that moment was to stop kissing you. Even now, as maddening as you are, I want nothing more than to take you in my arms.”
Too late he realized what he had let slip. Her lips, those deliciously full lips of hers, parted in shock. He closed his eyes as mortification washed over him. Surely she would rant and rave at him for that. Goodness knew he deserved it.
But she did not. Instead a disconcerting silence reigned. Finally he could take it no more. Without looking her way—for he could not bear the censure in her gaze—he rose and spun about, heading for the door.
Her voice, soft and trembling, stopped him.
“Why did you tell me that?”
He stood frozen for a moment, struggling to understand it himself. “Damned if I know,” he managed before striding from the room.
