“So you can decide whether or not to come yourself?” He wasn’t truly asking.
Her lips twitched as if deciding whether or not to smile—or frown. “Possibly.”
He chuckled. He couldn’t help himself. One thing he’d always appreciated about this woman: she was honest. “If you must know,” he said, “I’ll be collecting wood for the bonfire and helping construct it, so I shall, indeed, be in attendance.”
She released a deep sigh. “I didn’t have you down as one to involve himself in pagan beach happenings.”
“Well, Lady Delilah, you don’t know me at all.”
It had to be said.
Incredulous eyes swung his way. “I’ve known you for well over a decade. What a ridiculous thing to say.”
He shook his head. Though sand shifted beneath his arse, firm ground stood beneath his feet. “You’ve been acquainted with the Duke of Ravensworth, I’ll grant you that.”
“Youarethe Duke of Ravensworth.”
“That was the title I was given from the moment of my birth. Should I list all my other titles for you?”
“What exactly are you getting at?”
“The titles don’t make the man.”
She blinked, slowly. “You are the Platonic ideal of all that is Ravensworth. Who are you if you’re not him?”
“Seb, builder of beach bonfires and enactor of pagan happenings. But my point is, aren’t you curious about who I am? Who Itrulyam?”
A question she wasn’t ready to answer. He could see it in her eyes. She wanted him to be Ravensworth. So she could keep him tidy and contained within a single dimension.
All because of what happened at Eton.
In that moment, he decided. The time had arrived to have the truth of that day out between them.
He was opening his mouth to do precisely that, when she opened hers first. “About what happened,” she said. A light blush pinked her cheeks.
Though it sounded like a continuation of his own thoughts, she wasn’t speaking of Eton. Only one happening could provoke that particular blush… Their, erm,tête-a-têtebeneath the stage.
“You’ll have to be more specific.” He wouldn’t be helping her with this.
She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “You don’t have any regrets for, erm,it?”
Regrets?
Was the woman mad?
“No,” he stated. It was the simple truth.
“No?”
He gave his head a slow shake. “Do you?”
“That’s not a question a gentleman would ask.”
She was evading.
He wouldn’t let her. “Lilah,” he began.
“I haven’t given you leave to call me Lilah,” she said, the picture of primness—except for her bare feet and the subject at hand.
