His hand wound around the back of her neck, and he laced his fingers through her loosely piled hair. When he deepened the kiss, she moaned.
Cassian kissed her with an intensity he knew Cecilia could not have ever expected from him, especially with his cold nature over the past few days. The kiss was raw, passionate, with a touch of desperation like a man deprived of water for days on end who then, finally, found a flowing river.
She kissed him back with a rivaling intensity, a feverish need that echoed inside him. Reluctantly, he pulled away and tempered his smile when she chased after his lips; his lips did curl when he saw how swollen hers were.
Raking a hand through his hair, he sighed, “’Tis a pity that you gave me a reason to stay and see Whitmore implode. Otherwise, I’d haul you back home.”
She nibbled on her lip, eyes darting to the garden party in full swing behind the hedges, before she turned back to him. “Let’s leave. My job here is already done.”
His brows lifted. “Are you sure?”
“Yes!” she nodded feverishly. “I would much rather spend time with you anyway. I am sure Ben will regale you with all the details on what happened to Gabriel. There is no need to put salt in the wound.”
“Maybe for you,” he grinned wickedly. “Iam not that noble.”
She rolled her eyes with a soft laugh. “Let’s get back home, good sir.”
As he guided her to the carriage, he said, “Remind me to get in contact with Lady Catherine. If she could find that about Whitmore, I need her network for my own dastardly ends.”
“Scoundrel,” she muttered as he helped her into the carriage.
“And proud of it,” Cassian grinned as he closed the door. He shuttered the window and then took his seat. “One more thing, sweetheart—”
“Hm?”
He hauled her into his lap and caged her head, “I apologize for being an angry, jealous cad when you told me you’d gone to see Whitmore. I’d… I’d imagined the worst, and you did not deserve me shutting you out, and I was wrong for it.”
“Thank you for acknowledging it because I did not enjoy the angry, jealouscad,” she said lightly. “I much prefer the teasing, sarcastic, protectivecadhe was before he turned into the angry, jealous cad.”
His hand slid up her back. “Does this man have any reason to return to the angry, jealouscad?”
“No,” Cecilia assured him, a breath from his lips. “Not at all.”
Drawing her closer, he flirted his fingers over her bodice and canted his head to the left. “Do you regret this?”
It took Cecilia a hair longer than usual to cotton on to what he meant—as he could easily mean dragging Gabriel’s skeleton into the light.
“No,” she admitted eventually. “Being married to you was not what I had expected, but now I realize it was the best thing. Otherwise, I’d have been yoked to a devil in disguise.”
She stroked his face and tempered a smile at the feel of his stubble coming out. “While the devil I thought I was avoiding turned into an honorable man. ’Tis a tale of ironies, isn’t it?”
“How do you know that the devil you thought won’t turn into a real devil?” Cassian asked quietly.
She tilted her head in thought for a moment. “Because I have seen the true soul of this devil,” she finally answered. “He is notdouble-faced as the other sod, who would have played this same despicable game on me. I would have found out about the child while being married to him.”
“Cecilia…” he pressed. “Do you truly not want to end this marriage? Youdoknow that I will be leaving England, and it is not temporary. I will be gone.”
She slumped into him and twisted so she sat sideways on his lap, then pillowed her head on his chest. “I… I do, and I don’t think I will regret it.”
“Don’t you wish to marry again someday?” he asked. “Don’t you want to find the love you’ve hoped for? The one depicted in the pages of those tawdry novels you read all the time?”
“They’re nottawdry,” she grumbled. “And they seem to fall short of depicting the real thing.”
Cassian was calm when he asked, “What do you mean?”
Please don’t tell me she is saying what I fear she might say.
“Love is not the constant euphoria some books say it is,” Cecilia replied softly. “It islaughter, it isconfusion, it isaggravation, and in between it all—there is some feeling of connection and a very scintillating pleasure.”
