As the music swelled, they went into the chase and any discussion grew impossible.Her heartbeat picked up a tempo of excitement and pain.He was leaving.Going so very far.She’d never see him again.And there was no point to crave his kisses or his embrace.No future for her fascination with him.No hope she might spend lazy afternoons in rose bowers kissing his delectable lips and reclining in his comforting arms.
Thank god the music died.
He led her back to Chaumont who sat talking with his mother, the duchess.
“Mama, Madame Chaumont,” he said to them, his grip firmly on Ada’s hand, “forgive me if I leave you for a few minutes.Miss Hanniford and I must talk.In private.I hope you will permit me?”He pointedly looked at the Frenchwoman.
“For a moment, only,MonsieurCole.”
The duchess smiled at Ada with such compassion, she feared the woman knew what was amiss between her son and her.How, why, Ada had not the time to conjure.She was near to breaking with sorrow and she had to run free of Victor and his loss.
“Here,” he said and led her along the far wall to the doorway to the foyer.“No one sees us leaving.Come now.The library.”
He hurried her along in the lead, his hand holding hers.At the doors to the library, he flung one wide and drew her in behind him.Shutting the door, he still held her hand and put it to his firm cheek.
She shouldn’t be here at all.There was no point.But his caresses, his kisses?Oh, she yearned for them like flowers need sun.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you all evening.”He brushed his mouth on hers.Hot, sweet, smelling of spirits, his lips were irresistible.
At his confession, she gasped and wound her arms around his broad shoulders.
He hauled her against him, the planes of his body cupping the curves of her own in a desire she’d felt in every muscle every nerve of her body.She kissed him, her lips full on his, wild and wanton.
She flung back her head and pushed away.This must end.“I don’t want you.I don’t want this.”
He pressed against her.Two hands to the shelves behind her, he blocked her retreat and leaned down.His gaze, his breath, his mouth overwhelming her with his seductive intent, he gave her a lazy grin.“I say you do.I say you want me as much as I want you.”
He cupped her shoulders and brought her up so that he kissed her, took the breath from her body, the reason from her mind.He broke their hold with a gasp.“I’ve told myself for days I must not have you.That you were fire to my ice.Salt to my wounds.But you are salve to them.Lovely and witty and strong, but so tender.I want you.And I’m a mad man growling with delight that my brother will not have you.Not have youever.Because you are so wise.You don’t want him.You want me.And do not deny it.”
“I wish I could.”She kissed him once more.“I can’t explain my sudden attraction except…except for your honor and your care of your family.”She let the tears fall then, cascading silently down her cheeks.She quivered as she stared at him.Sweet man.Daring, too.She cupped his jaw and peered into those unusual eyes that would haunt her years after she abandoned him tonight.“That’s more than enough for some.Even for many who’ve known someone they care for mere days.”
“Grant me days more for us to get to know each other.”
“No.”
“Darling,” he whispered and put his lips to the hollow beneath her ear.“I only said I’d return to China in the fall because I wanted you so desperately after yesterday in the garden—”
“Forget that.”
“No!”He grasped her chin, lifted her face for his searing kiss.“No.I can’t.And you haven’t either.I feared yesterday that I could care for you so much that I’d lose myself…”
She sank backward to the shelves.This was a deeper tenderness—a wound—in him she had not glimpsed.What was it?His wife?“I would never hurt you.”
He kissed her again, a rousing claim of lips and tongue and breath.“God, yes, I know that.”
She put a hand to his chest to keep him a safer distance.“I don’t know what you’re telling me.”
“I planned never to care for another woman.”He squeezed shut his eyes.“I chose quickly.Poorly.That kind of hell lives with you.I told Richard I’d go abroad sooner because I thought to finish my business here and travel far from you.I warned myself not to go near you tonight or ever after.But you draw me.You smile or you frown and I am drawn.”
“Stop please.”
“I wanted you to have a good man to pursue you.A young man with no failures that shrouded him.”
She hugged him, sad that he’d criticize himself.“You are a good man, a young man.”
He laughed as if to deny that.Then he ran his fingers along her temple to her chin.“Old.Jaded, but still.I can’t ignore you or how you illuminate any room, any conversation.You are quite the most refreshing young woman.I’d like to come to London, take you riding in my landau and meet your family.Say you will receive me.”
At the mention of her family, she sobered.This was the crux of her problem, her conflict with his proposal to court her.Her joy in her growing extended family—from her sister Lily and her husband and their two sons, to her cousin Marianne in Paris and her husband Remy and son, to her brother Pierce, and her father and his new wife Liv with her daughter Camille and their new son and another baby due in September—she loved them all.And for years, bitter years, she’d been alone, denied the comfort of their company.The hollow ache she’d abhorred—the one she felt all those years away from them when they lived in Baltimore and Texas and she’d been cloistered in Connecticut—rose up like a spectre to haunt her.
