For although the husky voice had been deliberately assumed, and although he had declared that even her lone female presence on this earth would not entice him, they were gazing at each other with anger and dislike and unmistakable lust. He wondered if she was honest enough with herself to admit that last.
“Perhaps,” he said, getting to his feet, “you can find someone here at the house partyalmostas wealthy, my lady. I would not, incidentally, advise you to set your cap at Luttrell though he has dazzling expectations. He is more interested in bedding you than wedding you. And I, unfortunately, am not on the market. Not for you, at least.”
“No,” she said, placing her hand in his when he offered it and rising from her chair. “It is all too easy to see at whose doors you are shopping, my lord. Someone young and biddable and not too clever will suit you admirably. She will bend easily to your autocratic will.”
“And perhaps,” he said, “she will be less bitter about the simple fact that she was born a woman. Shall we go to bed?”
He could have bitten his tongue out as soon as he said it, as soon as he read her interpretation of his words in her startled eyes. He closed his own eyes briefly and smiled ruefully, his anger disintegrating.
“Christina,” he said, “we must somehow cry truce. For at least a week, perhaps longer, we have to exist side by side in this house. Can we do it, do you suppose, without constantly crossing swords, often deliberately?”
“I believe it should be possible, my lord,” she said.
“Well, then.” He squeezed her hand, which for some reason he was still holding. “Tomorrow we will try to do better. Though today the house party made a good beginning, did it not? Everyone seems happy to be here.”Say good night, he told himself.Make an end of this.
“Gerard—” she said.
It was the sound of his name on her lips that did it. Spoken softly. He did not wait to hear what she was going to say, or even if she intended to add anything. Perhaps his name was all she had to say. He dipped his head and set his mouth to hers.
Soft, warm, sweet, lips parted, as were his own, and pressing back against his own. Moist flesh, taste, heat. And the flaring of a need to delve deeper, to plunge beneath the surface of her, to drink at the well of her femininity.
He lifted his head hastily.
“Well, at least,” he said, “we know that some of what we spoke in anger was lies.”
“Yes,” she agreed and she slid her hand from his. “Good night, my lord.”
“Good night, my lady,” he said and watched her cross the room unhurriedly, with her customary lithe grace. She opened the door without jerking on it and closed it quietly after she had passed through it. He wondered how much of an effort of will it had cost her to act as if nothing untoward had happened.
Hell! His hands closed into fists at his sides. He was fighting full-blown arousal.
Damnation!
Chapter 9
NEVER once had Christina thought of remarrying. She had found a guilty sense of freedom and peace in her widowhood, even during the year of deep mourning with all the restrictions it had imposed upon her appearance and activities, even during the months since when she had continued to live in much the same way she had lived for nine years before Gilbert died—as if asleep or in that dazed state between sleeping and waking.
But she was not free. And there was no peace. She did not even have the limited freedom of knowing herself mistress of Thornwood.
Thornwood is mine, Christina.
There had been intense satisfaction in his voice when he had spoken the words. They had repeated themselves in her mind over and over again during a night of disturbed sleep.
You can remain here with your children as my dependent for the rest of your life... Or you can marry again.
He wanted to be rid of her. Was it surprising? She wanted to be rid of him. And there was only one way of doing it.
The following morning, the first full day of the house party, was as bright and sunny as the day before. He was eager to grant Miss Lizzie Gaynor’s request and give a tour of the house, the Earl of Wanstead said at breakfast, but how could they possibly waste such glorious sunshine when his head gardener, apparently renowned as a forecaster of weather, was predicting snow within the next day or two?
There was a flurry of excitement about the table. White Christmases were rare, everyone agreed. It was rarer still to find oneself on a country estate when one of them happened along.
Perhaps they would change plans, then, his lordship suggested, and take a walk in the park while they might do so without the danger of breaking their necks at every step. There would be time enough later for him to show off his house.
And so almost all of them walked about the long lawn before the house, stopping to view its architectural splendor from various angles, and then they had proceeded on the scenic walk over the hill north of the house. The earl had Miss Gaynor on his arm the whole way. If she was disappointed at the postponed tour of the house, she was certainly not showing it. Her face glowed with rosy color beneath the fur-trimmed hood of her cloak, and she stopped the whole party far more often than seemed necessary in order to exclaim with delight over the beauty of various picturesque views.
There was a young lady, Christina thought, who had set her cap for a title and a fortune and a grand estate and a young and handsome husband. Just as she herself had been accused of doing when she married Gilbert. She wondered if Gerard was making the parallel in his mind.
Christina moved from group to group, making sure that everyone saw the best prospects and was not too cold or breathless or footsore to continue. Margaret was walking arm in arm with Winifred Milchip, though they were flanked by Frederick Cannadine and Viscount Luttrell and appeared to be very merry indeed. Christina steered clear of them and found herself during the final stage of the walk beside Mr. Geordie Stewart.
