She straightened. “Try me.”
“When I was six-and-ten, I came home from my last year at Eton, primed and ready to go off to Oxford. I walked in on my father having relations with two women who were certainly not his wife.”
She winced, “Good god.”
“He noticed me and told me I could claim one if I wanted,” Edward said hollowly. “Disgusted, I turned away, walked right back to my carriage, and went back to Eton.
“I couldn’t forgive my father for that blatant abuse of his vows, and I felt soured about the very idea of marriage. It was not right to trick a woman into marriage when you know you have no inclination of holding to that vow. It was better to stay unattached than be a heinous deceiver.”
“I am so sorry.”
He tensed. “I don’t want your pity, Alice.”
She kept her voice calm. “There’s a difference between pity and empathy, Edward. I don’t feel sorry foryou—I feel sorry that you had that dreadful experience.”
He did not reply to that, only stared at her long enough that she grew antsy. “What?”
“That is the first time you have said my name.”
“Is it?” she asked. “I apologize, that was overdue.”
Footsteps entered the gallery, and Edward, after darting a look at the door, reacted the same way he had done in the maze garden, tugging her around a corner at the back of an open sarcophagus. The space had clearly been designed for one person, but now there were two bodies in the tight space—and one of them was quite big.
She and Edward stood facing one another; she was squished between his hard frame and the open tomb. Enticing heat exuded from his body and she felt like she was pressed tightly onto a heated wall.
“Be silent.” His quiet words brushed hotly against her ear, while moisture trickled beneath her bodice. She felt flushed all over. His eyes were firm. “And stop wriggling about.”
“Why are we hiding?” she whispered. “We were not doing anything wrong.”
In the dimness, she could make out the harsh jut of his jaw and the tiny nook in his nose; his clean male musk pervaded her nostrils, affecting her... strangely.
“For God’s sake, stop moving.” His voice sounded oddly husky. “Do you want us to be found?”
A woman’s high, quivering voice said, “Didn’t Duke Valhaven come this way? I’d wanted to talk to him about him possibly courting my daughter.”
Her mouth fell open. “Oh.”
“I don’t know why you keep with this, Morana,” another woman tutted. “The Duke has made it clear that he is not one to marry. It is common knowledge in the ton and across the continent. What more do you want from him? To write it in the sky?”
Clamping her lips tight, Alice waited for the group to leave before she whispered, “I see why you wanted to hide. Are you so terrified of marriage-minded mamas?”
“Frustratedmore like,” he grunted.
She licked her lips—unintentionally. “Are you going to let me go now?”
His eyes honed onto the motion. “Not when you do things like that.”
Instinct told her what he was about to do. “We can’t.”
“Just this one last time,” he breathed raggedly, and in the next instant, his mouth was on hers; his hard, firm lips ignited a submerged need inside her. She felt something deep inside respond to the dominance, her heart wanted to give him something from deeper. A hunger for something she’d never known came roaring to life inside her, and the feeling was astonishing.
A soft moan escaped her throat, and Edward swallowed it like a man dying of thirst. His low growl shivered through her moments before their tongues twined and tangled.
Then the kiss deepened, and while her knees were tempted to give out, she didn’t fall; instead, firm unmovable hands were holding her fast, and all she could do was cling to the warm, hard muscles that anchored her.
His tongue slid against hers again, and the slippery twist released a molten rush between her thighs. She moaned and the kiss tangled, getting hotter and hotter. Her head ran with the pleasure of it and just as she felt weak enough to faint, he left her lips to suck her earlobe, to lick his way down her neck.
“Stop, stop,” she pulled away and gasped. “I need—I need to leave.”
