“Please,” she moaned.
If his eyes had been open, they would have rolled backward at the arousing plea. Please, indeed. He wanted it, as well. But he had to ask. “Please what?” His voice was hoarse, scarcely recognizable to his own ears.
“Please,” she repeated.
Please take me? Please touch me?His thoughts circled as he pulled her earlobe into his mouth for a gentle bite.
“I cannot return home like this,” she burst out.
Leo paused, his eyes snapping open and his heart giving a hard punch to his ribs. Surely he’d misunderstood her. “I beg your pardon?”
Mimicking his previous motion, she trailed her lips along the side of his neck, and a shiver danced down his spine.
“If I return home with my maidenhead intact, I will be—” She broke off, scattering kisses along his collarbone. “Please, take me. I am yours to have.”
As though a blast of frigid air from beyond his windows engulfed him, his ardour instantly cooled. With no small amount of regret, Leonard released Miss Smith and stepped backward, putting space between them.
God damn it, she looked appealing. Her lips and breasts were swollen with desire, her chest and neck flushed, and her hair fallen in dark curls about her shoulders. She looked entirely delectable, like a woman recently tupped. And entirely wrong for him.
Her brow crinkled. “Whatever is the matter?” she asked, breathless. “Will you not—”
Leo shook his head. “I cannot be the man to help you.”
Percy’s impertinent words rang through his mind.“Fucking can sometimes just be fucking…”But Percy was wrong. Leonard had been that man once, but he wouldn’t be again, could not be careless about a woman and her future.
“But surely you don’t mean that,” she protested, her chest growing slightly pink.
“Indeed, I do, Miss Smith.” He cleared his throat against the tight dryness there. “I cannot countenance your being injured by my actions. And I certainly cannot risk having someone angry with what I’ve done come back here to cause harm to my staff or to Lizzy. There is too much at stake, and I am unwilling to overlook the risks. I cannot—will not—be that man again.”
She pulled her lips between her teeth and met his gaze. Her green-and-grey eyes glittered in the firelight and—God damn it to hell—watered around the edges. Shite, he’d hurt her. His gut clenched.
With a nod, Miss Smith turned and quietly slipped from the room.
An alarming discomfort prickled across his chest and down his arms to his fingertips. It was a distasteful sensation that he believed was linked to guilt…regret. He’d felt those emotions often enough, however, and this was different. Damnation, the woman had him in knots. He didn’t care for it.
He retrieved his snifter and strode to the tantalus, pouring himself another three fingers of whisky.
* * *
Frigid snowflakes bitat Juliana’s cheeks, neck, and ears as she rode hell-bent toward London. Well, she amended, it was the direction that the stable hand had told her was south, and she’d put her faith in his knowledge of the land.
Mr. Notley’s stolen greatcoat flapped weakly in the wind, but it was warmer than she could have hoped. In the Woodhaven Hall stables, she’dborrowedsome twine, and she’d knotted it about her waist, tightening the voluminous material around her. She’d also slipped a penknife into one of her deep pockets—along with the pistol and the rest of her meagre belongings—prepared to defend herself should it be required. Again.
Her heart gave a tight squeeze, and she urged her borrowed mount faster.
Mr. Notley’s words echoed in her mind, like the ghost of mockery:“There is too much at stake, and I am unwilling to overlook the risks. I cannot—will not—be that man again.”
What man was he unwilling to be? What had happened in his past? And why couldn’t she dispel the feeling that she’d made a grave mistake?You’ve been rejected, Juliana, precisely as Father predicted.
The road wavered before her, and she blinked back the tears. It would not do to weep now. She would continue her journey to London, meet with Grace Huntsbury, and change the course of her life for the better.
She sniffled, her lungs burning with the cold. If her brother interfered, she would simply have to lie about her maidenhead to withdraw from the marriage that he’d arranged. And hope beyond hope that he would permit her to live in London as she desired.
Indeed, it was for the best that she’d left Woodhaven Hall. In fact, she ought to have left before she’d blundered, and certainly before Mr. Notley had grown curious about her carriage accident. The man had rejected her, and that was that.
It was her fault, of course; she’d approached the man and opened herself to rejection.Never again. She repeated the litany in her mind. Never would she allow herself to become so vulnerable, so open to hurt. She could only trust herself not to cause pain; being alone was best for both her sanity and her heart.
CHAPTER10
