Again, he seemed to surprise her.“Because they are true.In my defence, they called Sark the Damned Earl, didn’t they?But the Wicked Widow is all my own work.”
“And are you?”
“Wicked?”she said.“When I choose to be.What of you?”
“Oh,” he said vaguely, “one cannot be good all of the time.”
She laughed, her eyes flashing with something unreadable and yet unbearably exciting.“A man after my own heart.”
Chapter Two
Tabitha was intrigued.The pale and fragile gentleman she had taken pity on was curiously ageless.Although he possessed the poise of a much older man, the lines of pain and suffering seemed etched into a much younger face.There was something at once frail and strong about him that she had never come across before, and it did not hurt that he was tall-ish and handsome in a fine-boned, almost breakable kind of a way.And his deep, soft voice seemed to do something very strange andmeltyto her bones.
When she had glimpsed him from the carriage window, he had been striding out with grace and a sort of indefatigable sense of freedom that attracted her at once.He had proved to be good mannered and shy, and remarkably un-disgruntled by his misfortune.Not quite like anyone else she had ever met.He said odd things, humorous things with a straight face.Always attracted by novelty, she had also rather liked the diffident admiration she read in his eyes, until he had gazed at her with such speculation when she mentioned the name Lisle.
Disappointment that he was not different after all was unexpectedly intense.And yet he did not appear remotely shocked, only surprised, as if he had never heard of her reputation and didn’t much care anyway.
He was, she reflected, a mysterious youth, drifting alone about the countryside.It did cross her mind that he was evading the law—but she had heard of no recent duels save Lord Durward’s latest, and this Mr.De’Ath seemed far too educated and civilized for other forms of crime.
When she lapsed into silence, so did he, almost as though he respected her right not to make conversation if she chose.In fact, he seemed perfectly comfortable with it.Watching him surreptitiously, she almost wished they had not told each other their names, so that they could remain strangers, attracted to each other, and able to act on that attraction or not without embarrassment or repercussions.
She wondered again how old he was, though it scarcely mattered.With that face and that poise, he would have some experience of women.Her gaze rested on his thin, long lips, firm and yet gentle in repose.She wondered how he would kiss, and then, more shockingly, what kind of a lover he would be...
Hastily, she looked away.This was no time—or place—for dalliance.After all, she was too close to home, where she meant to collect Lily and take her to Louisa Hawthorn’s gathering.
She cast him another speculative glance.“I suppose you are going to Lady Hawthorne’s party?”
“I am not acquainted with Lady Hawthorn.Is that your destination?”
“When my baggage and my maid catch up with me and I have collected my stepdaughter.”
Something changed in his eyes, though she could not quite read it.“Are you a wicked stepmother too?”
“So Sark tells me, but my husband willed her care to me until she marries.”
“Is that occasion imminent?”he asked.
