The music stopped, the air going still.
“Wait.”
Ignore him. Just go. Keep walking.She took another step, self-preservation at the reins.
“Victoria, don’t go.”
She pivoted before she could rethink the wisdom of obeying him. His words had been part demand, part request. He didn’t deserve her presence. She didn’t owe him her time. But their gazes clashed and held, and even with the distance between them, something made her retrace her steps, at least back to the threshold where she’d lingered before.
“What do you want, my lord?” She would be cool to him. Civil but not kind. Above all, she didn’t owe him kindness.
He stood, and she realized for the first time how informally he was dressed. Trousers and a crisp white shirt beneath a charcoal waistcoat. No jacket. He looked at home, and the thought produced an unwanted frisson of emotion unfurling within her.
“Do you intend to hover in the hall, or will you join me?”
His rakish grin, taunting and yet inviting, sent heat careening through her. “I intend to remain where I’m safe.”
“Ah.” He sauntered toward her with the bold air of a man who knew exactly the picture he presented. Who knew exactly how much he could make a woman—any woman—want him. “You speak of yesterday’s breakfast.”
“I speak of your attempts to sway me from my course.” Divorce. Yes, that was her course. Even if she had brokered a sort of peace for herself here, a certain amount of contentedness cultivated by her industrious nature, Carrington House was not where she belonged. England was not where she belonged. Nor was she meant to be his wife.
He stopped when he was near enough that her skirts brushed his trousers. His expression was unreadable. “Your course? Surely you cannot be continuing on with this divorce claptrap?”
How dare he dismiss her concerns, he who had spent all of their married life chasing other women until a scant few days ago? Her lips flattened into a grim line. “Freedom is not claptrap, my lord.”
“Freedom.” He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tipping it up. “Freedom is an American fiction. Of course you must realize that none of us, neither you nor I, are ever truly free, Lady Pembroke. The whims of society and the trappings of our civilized world see to that.”
She pulled away from his grasp. “What a grim view of the world you must have.”
He smiled at that, but it was not a smile that carried to the vivid depths of his blue eyes. Nor was it particularly pleasant. “Surely no more grim than your view of me, dear heart.”
Victoria swallowed. Was it just her imagination, or was he leaning into her? Her skirts hadn’t been so thoroughly crushed against his powerful thighs just a moment ago, had they? She didn’t dare look down or glance away. He was an odd, compelling man, at turns charming and carefree, others dark and jaded. Perhaps the real Pembroke could be found somewhere in between the disparate faces he presented.
“You haven’t given me reason to view you otherwise,” she pointed out to him.
“I shall endeavor to change that.”
“You needn’t bother.”
He stared at her, long and frank, until her cheeks heated. “Why don’t you cross the threshold? I rather fancy you don’t trust yourself.”
She scoffed. “Of course I trust myself. It is you I don’t trust. It is you who isn’tworthyof my trust.”
“Can it be that you’re afraid?” he drawled the question, almost as if he were bored. But his expression told a far different tale. He was intent. Intent upon her.
“Don’t be foolish.” She whirled past him, stalking into the music room and twirling in a melodramatic circle before she could think of how silly it must make her look. Spinning about for the Earl of Pembroke? What in heaven’s name was the matter with her? She stopped, facing him, uncertain of what to say next. “Here I am. Unafraid.”
“Here you are,” he agreed calmly, striding toward her, eating up the space she’d just so breezily put between them. He caught her around the waist, drawing her suddenly up against his tall, hard body. “Here you are.”
Her hands fluttered up, her palms pressing to his shoulders, and she instantly wished she hadn’t touched him at all. He was so very warm through his shirtsleeves. So vital. His scent drifted over her. Musk and shaving soap. She forced herself to think of anything else. “You play quite well, my lord.”
“I’d forgotten how good it felt,” he startled her by saying. His hands splayed over her waist in a possessive grip. Part of her relished it. Another part of her was horrified by it. “There is something about losing one’s self that is quite heady.” His head dipped lower, his breath fanning over her lips.
Oh dear. She had sworn she would not again wind up in such a position, at his mercy. As his willing dupe. “I didn’t know you favored the piano,” she said stupidly. But it was true. She hadn’t. This music room had been meant for her, not for him. That they stood in it together now seemed almost surreal.
“There are a great many things you don’t know about me.” One of his hands slid up her back to tangle in the hair at her nape. His fingers flexed, catching in the strands. “Just as there are many things I don’t know about you. I want to learn, Victoria. I want to learnyou.”
“It’s too late for that.” Even if his bold proclamation did create a pang in her heart that echoed the pulse of need growing elsewhere.
