“But that is fine.” She said the words, but the caustic note in her voice suggested she felt otherwise. “I have learned recently that sometimes that is the way of things. I would just find love elsewhere.” She lifted a shoulder and let it drop.
And for a moment, Ash thought he witnessed defeat, sadness in the way her thin frame sagged, the way the light in her eyes disappeared. But then it was gone, and she was talking again, amber eyes an inferno he very much feared would consume him.
“ButColborninformed me that would not be the way of things. Apparently, your hypocrite of a son can bed every woman in England, but I belong to him. I am not to be sullied by another man.”
There was a sharp bitterness in her tone. And that same bitterness coated his tongue. It was his fault. His fault that his son was turning into this despicable, arrogant, and presumptuous version of a man.
After Ash’s wife had died—after Colborn had lost his mother at the age of twelve—Ash had given the boy anything and everything he wanted. Guilt had eaten away at Ash, at being the reason his sons and daughter had lost their doting mama. So, he had never told them no. And now, Colborn was a young man who believed it was his due to be given everything he wanted.
Which included the young woman before him.
“I will speak to Colborn,” he said, his voice carrying only a faint trace of hoarse self-reproach. He would fix this.
She stepped forward again, and this time she was close enough that her breasts pressed against him. Hard, pebbled nipples searing him through the thin fabric of his lawn shirt. Which only drew his attention to the fact that he was wearing quite little clothing himself. Stockings, trousers, and lawn shirt unbuttoned at the neck. He should step back.
Feet, move.
They didn’t. Traitors.
“I don’t want you to speak to Colborn,” she murmured. “I don’t want your son. I want you, Your Grace.”
What?That had his feet moving. He took two giant steps back.
She nodded. “Yes, I want you.”
Apparently, he had asked the question aloud.
“I want revenge, Your Grace. I want Colborn to know, not only did I sully myself with another man, but it was with his own father.”
She grinned, her eyes lighting up, and he thought it might be from pride? Excitement?
“It is a perfect plan, you see?”
No, he most assuredly did not. And he feared he would permanently not be able to breathe after this interaction.
“If I sleep with you, Colborn would never marry me. He couldn’t possibly marry a woman who had bedded his father. And he couldn’t exactly allow that to become public knowledge now, could he? Oh, the shame! Being passed up for his own father.” She laughed, low and sultry and laced with triumph.
Her gaze slowly caressed every inch of him, and he steeled himself, blanked out his mind. Because that gaze set his blood ablaze.
“Could anyone blame me?” she added, her voice pure, soft sex. The slow, slick, sensual kind. “He could never compare to you.”
Dangerous. She was very, very,verydangerous. And his cock liked that very much.Down, boy.
“So…” she continued. “We would have to discreetly end the betrothal. I get my revenge and my escape.”
“Why would you ever think I would agree to this?” he asked, his voice climbing in pitch at the absurdity of the notion. Because the idea that he would agree to this was absurd. Itwas. Was, was, was.
You will not sleep with her, Ash.
It was one thing for her to haunt his dreams, but not his physical bed.
Lady Felicity’s thin, delicate brows furrowed, and she truly seemed confused, as if his refusal was something she could have never comprehended occurring.
“Well, you are his father.” She looked up at him and waved her hand casually at him. “Like father, like son; the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree; cut from the same cloth…”
Ah. She assumed he would sleep with her because his son, if he had been in Ash’s shoes, most definitely would have. He shouldn’t be disappointed by the fact she felt that way. That she believed that about him. He shouldn’t. But he was.
“I regret I must thwart your plans, Lady Felicity. But my son and I… different cloth, different fabric entirely.”
