“Not really,” he said in a lazy tone that annoyed her. It implied she was too stupid to understand his reasoning. “You claimed you wanted a husband. I needed a mother for my children. Seems simple enough.”
“I don’t want to marry you! I want to marry John Cabot! He’s rich, you fool!”
“I have enough money to support you, George. And you don’t even have to pull your dress to your waist to wrangle an offer out of me. I told you before. I can marry you.”
“You can go to hell.”
He dropped the towel on the table with an angry thud and he stood, towering over her. “Aye, and you can go right on your back on that table.”
She wasn’t afraid of him. “That’s your way of doing everything, isn’t it? If you can’t get what you want, you just take it. I wonder if you know how very much I despise you.”
He didn’t say anything. But seconds later he grabbed her so quickly she never saw it coming. His mouth was on hers before she could take a breath.
He groaned painfully, pulled back and swore. She shoved him away from her and wiped her mouth. She didn’t care that he’d stopped, that he’d hurt himself. He’d humiliated her.
They just glared at each other. The air between them turned wicked. He took a step toward her.
She grabbed the nearest thing: her fork.
She waved it in front of his bruised face. “Stay back.”
His gaze flicked from her to the fork and back to her again.
“You touch me, you come near me, and hell and all its tortures will be heaven compared to one minute with me and this fork.”
She backed away from him. Then she was running up the stairs and away as quickly as she could.
Eachann dumped the rocks out on the table. He spent a minute or two filling the towel with fresh cool rocks, then he stuck it back on his face, scowling at the world in general.
David closed the door to the cellar with a hard slam that made Eachann turn around, the towel still pressed to one side of his face.
David just stared at him, dumbfounded. “Did I hear that right?”
“What?”
“On her back on the table?”
“It would be a good place for her.”
David gave a short laugh. “You’re a fool.”
Eachann’s expression grew belligerent. “She’s causing trouble.”
“The trouble isn’t her. The trouble is you. You’re confused.”
“I can’t wait to hear why,” he muttered.
“You’re treating the wrong ache.”
Eachann scowled at him from his one good eye.
“That cold towel shouldn’t be on your swollen face. You ought to put it between your legs.”
Chapter Thirty
I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
—Jonathan Swift
